Dynamically updated data sheets using row links

ABSTRACT

In response to a determination that a first logical table is to be created in a data sheet, a respective row identifier is generated and stored for individual rows of the first logical table. To indicate a relationship between a particular cell of another logical table and a particular row of the first logical table, the row identifier of the particular row is stored. After a modification of a value stored in the particular row, the row identifier is used to determine an updated value to be displayed in the particular cell of the other logical table.

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.16/452,394, filed Jun. 25, 2019, which is hereby incorporated byreference herein in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

As collecting and storing data from a variety of sources has becomeeasier and cheaper in recent years, business decisions are increasinglybeing made in a data driven manner. Over recent decades fairlysophisticated data processing applications have been developed usingdatabases of various types, including traditional relational databases,object-oriented databases, non-relational or “NoSQL” databases, and thelike. In some cases, such data processing applications have beendesigned to handle millions of even billions of data records.

Typically, developing and changing applications that rely on databasesystems is a non-trivial exercise, usually involving teams ofprogrammers and long development cycles. Large well-financedorganizations may be able to hire enough programming staff to developand maintain the applications for various target environments, oroutsource the work of developing and maintaining the applications.However, for a “long tail” of relatively small teams or individuals, thecosts associated with developing full-fledged data managementapplications using conventional database systems may sometimes beprohibitive. Furthermore, interacting with the database applications maysometimes require expertise in languages (such as various versions ofthe Structured Query Language in the case of relational databases) inwhich expertise may sometimes be lacking in small teams.

In contrast to large and complex database systems, spreadsheetapplications offer an easier-to-use approach towards managing data.Spreadsheets offer a tabular view of data, often with fewer restrictions(for example on the types of data that can be stored in a given row orcolumn) than database systems, and allow many common types ofcalculations to be performed on data sets using formulas that arerelatively easy to understand and modify. However, as the size of thedata sets to be managed increases, especially in scenarios in whichhierarchical and relational associations between different sets of dataneed to be incorporated into the applications, some traditionalspreadsheet programs may not necessarily work well.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an example system environment in which a sheets baseddata management service with support for dynamically materialized viewsand row links may be implemented, according to at least someembodiments.

FIG. 2 illustrates example automated creation of row link records when aportion of a data sheet is designated as a logical table, according toat least some embodiments.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example creation of a dynamically materializedview associated with a logical table of a data sheet, according to atleast some embodiments.

FIG. 4 illustrates example automated responses to an update of a logicaltable of a data sheet, according to at least some embodiments.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example use of an automatically generated picklist to indicate relationships between rows of a pair of logical tables,according to at least some embodiments.

FIG. 6 , FIG. 7 and FIG. 8 collectively illustrate a simple example useof filter functions to indicate relationships among rows of a pair oflogical tables, according to at least some embodiments.

FIG. 9 illustrates an example of automated updating and re-sorting of adynamically materialized view, according to at least some embodiments.

FIG. 10 a and FIG. 10 b collectively illustrate examples of the use ofdynamically materialized views defined using presence and/or and absencecriteria, according to at least some embodiments.

FIG. 11 and FIG. 12 illustrate example programmatic interactions betweenclients and a sheets based data management service, according to atleast some embodiments.

FIG. 13 illustrates an example system environment in which anexpressions management service, a sheets based data management serviceand an application authoring service may be used collectively to developapplications for a variety of execution platforms, according to at leastsome embodiments.

FIG. 14 illustrates an example interface of an application authoringtool that may be used to develop applications that utilize row linkrecords and/or dynamically materialized views of a sheets based datamanagement service, according to at least some embodiments.

FIG. 15 illustrates an example provider network environment in which asheets based data management service may be implemented, according to atleast some embodiments.

FIG. 16 is a flow diagram illustrating aspects of operations that may beperformed to implement and utilize row link records at a sheets baseddata management service, according to at least some embodiments.

FIG. 17 is a flow diagram illustrating aspects of operations that may beperformed to implement and utilize dynamically materialized views at asheets based data management service, according to at least someembodiments.

FIG. 18 is a block diagram illustrating an example computing device thatmay be used in at least some embodiments.

While embodiments are described herein by way of example for severalembodiments and illustrative drawings, those skilled in the art willrecognize that embodiments are not limited to the embodiments ordrawings described. It should be understood, that the drawings anddetailed description thereto are not intended to limit embodiments tothe particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is tocover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within thespirit and scope as defined by the appended claims. The headings usedherein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be usedto limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughoutthis application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e.,meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e.,meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and“includes” mean including, but not limited to. When used in the claims,the term “or” is used as an inclusive or and not as an exclusive or. Forexample, the phrase “at least one of x, y, or z” means any one of x, y,and z, as well as any combination thereof.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Various embodiments of methods and apparatus for implementing andutilizing dynamically materialized views and row links for data sheetbased applications are described. Such applications may, for example, bedesigned for deployment to mobile environments (such as smart phones),web browser-based execution environments, as well as environments inwhich interfaces supporting end-user interactions via audio interfaces,gestures, and the like may be used. In some embodiments, theapplications may use an underlying network-accessible data managementservice that supports a “web-of-sheets” model for application data. Inthe web-of-sheets model, data may be stored in logically linkabletwo-dimensional cell grids or “data sheets”, with automaticinstantiation of child data sheets to represent hierarchicalrelationships, as well as the ability to represent several types oflogical associations or relationships between cells, resulting inautomated real-time or near-real time updates within the data sheets aswell as within applications relying on the data sheets.

In some embodiments, at least two types of primitives may be supportedat a sheets-based data management service (SDMS) for indicating logicalrelationships and dynamically updating data elements based on suchrelationships: row links and dynamically materialized views (DMVs)associated with specified queries. One or more data sheets may becreated at the SDMS and used to store a data set of an application,e.g., within a project workspace associated with the application; theproject workspace may for example be shared among various SDMS userssuch as application authors collaborating on the design and developmentof the application. With respect to a given data sheet, an SDMS clientmay use a programmatic interface (e.g., a “create table” commandselected from a menu of a graphical user interface) to indicate that aplurality of cells of the data sheet are to be designated as a logicaltable—that is, that the plurality of cells, arranged in some number ofrows and some number of columns, contain related data and are to betreated as a unit with respect to various types of operations. Inresponse to a designation of the plurality of cells as a logical table,in at least some embodiments, the SDMS may automatically generate andstore, corresponding to individual rows of the table, a respective rowlink record comprising an immutable row identifier. The row for which agiven row link record is created may be referred to as the source row ofthe row link in some embodiments, and the logical table containing thesource row may be referred to as the source table of the row link.Individual ones of the immutable row identifiers may be generated insome embodiments such that they are unique, at least within theworkspace in which the data sheet was created. In some embodiments,UUIDs (universal unique identifiers), such as randomly-assigned 128-bitnumeric values, 256-bit numeric values and/or strings (or concatenationsof such numerals and strings) may be used as the immutable identifiers.Note that the identifier for a given row may not be dependent on thevalues stored in the cells of the corresponding source row in someembodiments—for example, an identifier may be implemented as a numericor alphanumeric value which differs from, and is not necessarily derivedfrom, any of the values stored in the columns of the row. If two rows ofa source table have exactly the same values in each of their columns(i.e., if, for all applicable columns Ci in two rows R1 and R2, thevalue stored in column Ci of row R1 is identical to the value stored incolumn Ci of row R2), the identifiers generated for the two rows maynevertheless be different in such embodiments. In at least someembodiments, a logical table may, at least at some point in time,comprise one or more empty rows (that is, rows whose cells do notcontain any data), and respective row link record may be generated andused for the empty rows as well as any non-empty rows. Row link recordidentifiers may be referred to as being immutable because, even if thestructure of the source table changes (e.g., as a result of the additionof a row or a column), resulting in changes to the cell coordinates (rownumber and/or column number) of source row cells within the data sheet,in at least some embodiments the same identifier may continue torepresent and refer to a given source row as before the structuralchange.

In some embodiments, a row link record may comprise a displayspecification and/or a user-defined name for the source row. The displayspecification may indicate how the row link is to be visuallypresented—e.g., if a cell C1 of a sheet is populated with a rowidentifier of a given source row, contents of which columns (if any) ofthe source row should be displayed in C1, and how the values of thesource row columns should be formatted in C1. For example, consider ascenario in which the source table has columns named “EmployeeName,”“EmployeeID, “DepartmentID,” and “Rank”. One display specification insuch a scenario may indicate that the displayed value for thereferencing cell (the cell which is populated with or associated withthe row identifier) should concatenate the EmployeeName and Rank entriesof the source row, with a dash (“-”) separating the EmployeeName andRank.

Row link records, and contents derived from the source rows of the rowlink records, may also be accessed via formulas in some embodiments,e.g., from other data sheet cells or from applications. A formula maycomprise, for example, the name and parameters of a function (such as a“FindRow( )” function) that when evaluated returns the row identifier,which may in turn serve as a pointer to the source row. The use of aFindRow( ) function in the formula of a referencing cell C1 may thusresult in the SDMS storing an indication that C1 is associated with therow identifier returned from the evaluation of the FindRow( ) function.A FindRow( ) function may indicate a query parameter in someembodiments, indicating one or more predicates or clauses expressed interms of the column identifiers of the source table—e.g., a call toFindRow(Table1, “Table.Column1==1”) may return the row identifier of thefirst row within a table named Table1 whose Column1 value is equal to 1.In some embodiments, if multiple rows of the source table match thequery predicate(s), the row identifier of the first matching row (whenthe table is traversed top to bottom) may be returned. Alternatively, inother embodiments, the client of the SDMS may indicate how a single rowfrom multiple matching rows is to be selected in response to a FindRow() invocation. Note that although example syntax has been provided hereinto illustrate various aspects of row links and dynamically materializedviews, the underlying concepts and techniques are not tied to anyparticular syntax; as such, the syntax of commands or programmaticinteractions used to create, access, modify and/or delete row links anddynamically materialized views may differ in various embodiments.

Row links may also be used to extract and/or display one or more columnsof a row in at least some embodiments, and thus need not be limited torepresenting an entire row. For example, to extract the Column2 valuefrom a row link defined using Column1, syntax similar to FindRow(Table1,“Table.Column1==1”)[Column2] may be used. In various embodiments, rowlinks may be used as the basis for expressions across related rowswithin multiple logical tables, and expressions evaluations may utilizeand/or return row links where appropriate. For example, an expressionsimilar to “[Total Cost]=[Product][Price] *[Customer][Discount]*[Quantity]” may be evaluated using row links representing therespective rows of Product and Customer tables. In another example, thetaxes due from an entity may be computed with the help of row linksusing a combination of row-link based expressions similar to thefollowing: (a) [TaxRule]=FindRow(TaxRules,“TaxRules[MinimumIncome]>=[Gross Income] ORDER by TaxRules[Minimum Income]) and (b)[TaxesDue]=([Gross Income]-[TaxRule] [Minimum Income])*[TaxRule][Marginal Rate])+TaxRule[Minimum Due].

A row identifier may be used in effect as a pointer to refer to thecontents of the corresponding source row from various cell locations orapplication code components in different embodiments. For example, therow identifier of one of the rows of a logical table T1 may be stored ina record generated at the SDMS to indicate that a cell C1 of a differenttable T2 is related to, and/or should display values of one or morecolumns of, the source row. In another example a formula associated witha row link record, which evaluates to the identifier of the row, may beprogrammatically bound to an element of a graphical layout of a datasheets based application, such that at run time the formula isdynamically re-evaluated to determine the data (stored in thecorresponding row) to be displayed in the layout element. In variousembodiments, row identifiers and/or row link records may be accessed andused via any of several types of programmatic interfaces, includingcomponents of the graphical interfaces to data sheets provided by theSDMS (similar to spreadsheet interfaces), one or more types of functioncalls that may be issued to evaluate expressions from withinsheets-based applications or from individual cells within the datasheets, and/or one or more application programming interfaces (APIs). Inat least one embodiment, the SDMS may also provide a self-referencefunction for a row link record, which can be used within a formulaentered for a given cell to refer to the row to which that cell belongs.

In at least some embodiments, as and when the contents of the source rowof a row link record change, the cells or application elements whichrefer to the source row (e.g., via the row identifier stored in theassociated row link record) may be dynamically updated as well. Theterms “target data element” or “referencing data element” of a row linkrecord or row identifier may be used to refer collectively to (a)application elements that refer to the row link record using the rowidentifier and (b) data sheet cells that refer to the row link recordsvia the row link identifier. Such dynamic modification of the targetdata elements may continue to represent values obtained from the correctupdated source row, regardless of whether structural changes to thesource table have occurred since the row link record was created, whichmay have resulted in changes to cell coordinates of the cells of thesource row in various embodiments. As a result, applications that relyon the source table may continue to work correctly despite structuralchanges to the data sheet containing the source table. Row link recordsmay thus help enhance the robustness of data sheets based applicationssubstantially. In scenarios in which other cells (outside the sourcetable) refer to rows of the source tables via row links/identifiers, thedisplayed contents of such other cells may also be dynamically modifiedwhen the source row content changes in such embodiments, regardless ofchanges to the structure of the source table. In at least oneembodiment, a data sheet user may optionally select a deferral settingwith respect to a row link record associated with a given source row:e.g., instead of immediately updating referencing cells or applicationcomponents which refer to the source row via its row link or rowidentifier, a notification may be sent to the referencing cells orapplication components, indicating that the data being referenced may beout-of-date or stale. In response to such a notification, theapplication component or referencing cell may, for example, issue arefresh request to obtain the current value(s) from the source row anddisplay the current value(s) according to a desired format. Row linksmay also be considered as the equivalents of edges in a graph ofrelationships; as such, the functionality described herein may blendaspects of relational modeling with graph operations. For example, in anexpression similar to “Table[Table1[Col1]][Table2[Col3]][Table3[Col2]]”,each intermediary column value represents a row link to the next table,representing an edge of a relationship graph. Furthermore, row linksprovide an important differentiation from databases by supporting verycomplex queries without requiring users to have to understand anunderlying data model. In traditional databases, views typically need tobe created by someone proficient in relational modeling, and thenmaintained. In contrast, row links eliminate the need to understandrelational modeling to set them up; instead, they may be created andused in various embodiments via WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get)interfaces. Furthermore, queries may be executed directly on data setsthat include row links in various embodiments, without requiringdatabase-like views to be explicitly created and maintained.

In addition to row link records of the kind described above, an SDMS maysupport dynamically materialized views (DMVs) associated with respectivequeries directed to a logical table in some embodiments. At least aportion of a data set of an application, stored in one or more datasheets at the SDMS in such embodiments, may comprise one or more logicaltables of the kind discussed above. The SDMS may, for example inresponse to a programmatic request from a client, generate and store adescriptor of a DMV associated with a particular logical table (referredto as the source table of the DMV). The descriptor may in someembodiments comprise (a) a filter query to be used to select a subset ofcells from the logical table and (b) a result of executing the filterquery. A filter query may indicate one or more Boolean predicates orclauses on the columns of the logical table in various embodiments. Agiven DMV may represent a set of rows, and in at least some embodiments,any operations that can be performed on a set of rows of a table mayalso be performed on a DMV. Any desired set of sets in a given column ofa table for that set of rows may be referenced using filters in suchembodiments. For example, using syntax similar to [UndoneTasks]=Filter(Tasks,“Tasks[Done]=FALSE”), a subset of tasks that havenot yet been completed may be obtained from a Tasks table. If each taskhas an associated number of “points” associated with it, the averagenumber of points of undone tasks may be obtained using syntax similar to[Average Undone Points]=Average([Undone Tasks][Points]). This in turnmeans that a filter query may operate on a summary value. Continuing theexample, syntax similar to [Expensive Undone Tasks]=Filter([UndoneTasks],“Tasks[Points]>=[Average Undone Points]”), a DMV may be populatedwith all those undone tasks whose points are above average for theundone tasks. In one embodiment, DMVs or their queries may be chained orpipelined—e.g., one DMV, DMV1 may be defined in terms of another DMV,DMV2. That is, in such embodiments, the output of one DMV (rather than asource table) may serve as the input for another DMV; as such, tablesand DMVS may both be considered examples of input data sets on which thefilter query of a new DMV may be applied to obtain the results of thenew DMV. An SDMS client may indicate a filter query in a programmaticrequest to create the DMV in various embodiments. The result ofexecuting the filter query may, for example be represented in thedescriptor using a set of row identifiers of the kind introduced above,indicate one or more rows of the logical table that satisfy the filterquery. Such row identifiers may have been generated automatically at thetime of creation of the logical table in response to a programmaticrequest in at least some embodiments as discussed above. A DMV may bereferred to as a filter in some embodiments.

After a descriptor for a DMV has been created and stored, the DMV may beused to populate one or more target data elements, e.g., within thesheets-based application or within one or more data sheets of the SDMS.For example, in one embodiment, a summarized representation of the DMVmay be displayed within another cell (or set of cells) of the same datasheet that contains the source table. The summarized representation,whose format and contents may be selectable/specifiable by an SDMSclient in some embodiments, may for example include a graphical filtersymbol (e.g., a “funnel” symbol, illustrated in several of theaccompanying figures and discussed below), and a dynamically updatedproperty of a result of executing the filter query. In some embodiments,the dynamically updated property may for example indicate thecardinality (number of rows) of the query result. As and when the sourcetable changes in such a way that the result of the filter query would bechanged, the displayed property may also be updated in variousembodiments. For example, consider a scenario in which, at the time thatan SDMS client requests the creation of a DMV, the number of rowsreturned when the specified filter query is executed is five, and theresult row count (the numeral 5) is displayed in the summaryrepresentation. If the contents of the source table are changed, suchthat the result row count becomes four, the numeral 5 wouldautomatically and near-instantaneously be replaced in the display of thesummary representation by the numeral 4 in this example scenario.

In addition to, or instead of, a summary representation, an expanded orfull representation of the query result may also be displayed in variousembodiments, e.g., within one or more data sheets of the SDMS or withina portion of the application. The expanded representation may displayvalues of one or more columns of the logical table for all of the rowsin the filter query result in some embodiments; in other embodiments,only the first N rows (where N may be selectable by the SDMS client) maybe displayed by default.

If and when a row of the source data set (e.g., a table or another DMV)of a given DMV is updated, a combination of corresponding actions mayautomatically be implemented at the SDMS in some embodiments. The filterquery of the given DMV may be re-executed in such embodiments, and a newresult (if the result has changed) may be stored in the DMV'sdescriptor. In at least some embodiments, as indicated above, thedynamically updated property displayed in the summarized representationmay be modified. In various embodiments, the display of the expandedrepresentation may also be modified based on the new results of thequery. Note that the changes applied to the expanded representation mayinclude re-sorting the presented data in some embodiments, e.g., if thechanges to the source table resulted in changes to the values of a sortcolumn. That is, in such a scenario, not only may values displayed inone or more rows of the expanded representation be changed, but rows inthe expanded representation may also be rearranged relative to oneanother based on dynamically re-sorting the rows. In some embodiments, anotification may be transmitted from the SDMS to an applicationdeployment platform at which an application that references the DMV isrunning, indicating that a new result of executing the query has beenobtained. Consequently, at the application deployment platform, outputpresented by the application may be modified based at least in part onthe new result. In some cases the output of the application may beupdated immediately and automatically in response to the notification.Note that in various embodiments in which sheets-based applications thatutilize the row-link and DMV features are developed and deployed, valuesaffected by changes to underlying sheet cells may be recomputedinstantaneously or near instantaneously (in contrast to traditionaldatabases). As such, the row-link and DMV functionality may combinevarious benefits and advantages of spreadsheet-like interfaces withthose of traditional database systems.

In some embodiments, a deferred evaluation setting for DMVs, similar tothat discussed above in the context of the row link records, may besupported at the SDMS. If a client on whose behalf the DMV was createdenables deferred evaluation for the DMV via a configuration setting, forexample, a staleness notification may be sent to the cells associatedwith the representations instead of automatically updating thesummarized representation and/or the expanded representation, and thevalues displayed therein may be modified in response to a refreshrequest.

In at least some embodiments, one or more tokens such as a function namemay be used to define a DMV as part of the formula of a data sheet cell,or as part of an expression evaluated as part of a component of asheets-based application. For example, an SDMS client may type in aformula similar to “=Filter(Table1, “Table1[Column1]>0”)” for a givencell Cj outside Table1, thereby creating a new DMV comprising thoseTable1 rows that have positive values in Column1. A displayspecification for the DMV may be programmatically indicated by theclient in some embodiments, indicating how the results of the query ofthe DMV should be displayed in Cj. In one embodiment, the SDMS may use adefault display specification if one is not indicated by theclient—e.g., elements similar to those discussed above for thesummarized representation of a DMV may be used for the display in cellCj in the above example. DMVs may be assigned respective identifiers,and/or user-defined names in at least some embodiments. In someembodiments, DMVs may be used as part of the formulas of other cells,either by using DMV identifiers/names or by referencing the cells inwhich the DMVs are defined. For example, if the formula of cell Cj isdefined using a Filter function as in the “=Filter(Table1,“Table1[Column1]>0”)” example above, a formula for cell Ck could referto Cj's DMV using Cj's cell coordinates—e.g., Ck's formula could be setto “=Cj” or “=Filter(Cj, “Table1 [Column2]>100)”. In the latterscenario, Ck would in effect define a second DMV, whose results are thesubset of Table1 rows whose Column2 value exceeds 100 and whose Column1value exceeds 0. Aggregation functions may be applied to DMVs in someembodiments within cell formulas or expressions, e.g., a formula similarto “=SUM(MyFilter1[Column3])” may be used to obtain the sum of Column3values of the results of the filter with user-defined name MyFilter1indicated within the SUM call.

In various embodiments, DMVs may be created, accessed and used via anyof several types of programmatic interfaces, including components of thegraphical interfaces to data sheets provided by the SDMS, one or moretypes of function calls that may be issued from within sheets-basedapplications or from individual cells within the data sheets, and/or oneor more application programming interfaces (which may, for example, beused within an application's source code). In at least one embodiment, asearch capability may be supported for DMVs by the SDMS—e.g., an SDMSclient may be able to request that a list of DMVs that have been createdand meet a specified search criterion (e.g., a user-defined name, asource data set identifier, or the like) be presented. In at least someembodiments, the SDMS may automatically create indexes on columns oflogical tables to speed up operations associated with DMVs and/orrow-links. In one embodiment, indexes may also be created on the stringsthat are displayed in a column which is populated using row links. Notethat within a logical table (or any other column of a data sheet), thedata types of the contents may not be required to be homogeneous—e.g.,some entries in a column may comprise row links, others may compriseplain character text, others may comprise numerals, and so on. In atleast some embodiments, the SDMS may internally convert data types ofcell contents (e.g., for comparison or sorting, or for other operations)when needed.

As one skilled in the art will appreciate in light of this disclosure,certain embodiments may be capable of achieving various technicaladvantages in practical applications, including some or all of thefollowing: (a) increasing the robustness of applications whose data setsare stored in data sheets, e.g., by eliminating errors that mayotherwise result when the structure of the underlying data sheetschanges, (b) enhancing the user experience of end users of data sheetsbased applications, by instantaneously or near-instantaneouslymaterializing changes resulting from modifications of the underlyingdata sheets, and (c) enhancing the user experience of a wide range ofapplication authors that are able to design and develop applicationsusing easy-to-learn spreadsheet-like interfaces without having to becomeexperts in, for example, traditional database management systems.

Example System Environment

FIG. 1 illustrates an example system environment in which a sheets baseddata management service with support for dynamically materialized viewsand row links may be implemented, according to at least someembodiments. As shown, system 100 includes various resources andartifacts of a sheets data management service (SDMS) 120 which may beused to support a variety of data sheets within sharable workspaces 150.A data sheet may comprise a grid of cells arranged in rows and columns;data sheets may also be referred to as worksheets in some embodiments.In one embodiment, collections of one or more data sheets may bereferred to as workbooks, with individual workbooks being stored asrespective files, and individual data sheets being accessed from withina workbook, for example, via tabs or similar interfaces. To simplify thepresentation, workbooks are not discussed further in much of thesubsequent description, and are not shown in the figures; instead, thediscussion is framed largely in the context of data sheets.

One or more sharable workspaces 150 may be established on behalf of agiven SDMS client in the depicted embodiment, e.g., in response torequests submitted from a client device 180 (such as a laptop, a smartphone, tablet or the like) via programmatic interfaces 177. A variety ofprogrammatic interfaces 177 may be implemented in some embodiments bythe SDMS 120 for the requests and corresponding responses, such as a setof APIs (application programming interfaces), web-based consoles,command-line tools, and/or graphical user interfaces (includingspreadsheet-like interfaces) etc. The requests may be received andhandled by one or more request handlers 182 implemented at one or morecomputing devices in the depicted embodiment. The client on whose behalfa workspace is created (or other entities to whom the client delegatesresponsibilities) may be responsible for setting up permissionsassociated with sharing the workspace—e.g., read, write, modify, delete,and other permissions with respect to the workspace 150 or individualsheets/workbooks (or subcomponents of the sheets) may be granted toother clients as desired. In at least some embodiments, templates usedto create child sheets may include some types of security-relatedproperties as well.

A plurality of data sheets 160 (e.g. 160A, 160B, 160C, 160D, 160E, 160For 160G) may be created and managed within a workspace 150 at the SDMS120, e.g., to store respective portions of data sets of a variety ofapplications being developed by a group of collaborating applicationauthors in the depicted embodiment. Some such data sheets-basedapplications may be intended for deployment to mobile platforms such asphones or tablets; other applications may be implemented within thesheets themselves. In various embodiments, application inputs and/oroutputs may be obtained from or presented to users via audio interfaces(e.g., interfaces of automated personal assistant devices), gesturerecognition interfaces, augmented reality/virtual reality interfaces,web browser based interfaces of laptops/desktops and the like. Some datasheets (such as child data sheets 160F and 160G) may be createdautomatically as part of template-based sheet hierarchies 154, whileothers may be created in response to programmatic per-sheet creationrequests.

A given workspace 150 may comprise one or more sheets within whichlogical tables are defined in the depicted embodiment, such as logicaltable 167A of data sheet 160B and logical table 167B of data sheet 160C.A subset of cells, comprising some number of specified rows and columns,of a given data sheet 160 may be designated as a logical table via aprogrammatic interface in various embodiments by an SDMS client,indicating that the cells of the rows are logically related and are tobe treated as a unit for at least some types of operations. For example,a client may use a “Create Table” element of a menu of a graphicalinterface to a data sheet to indicate that a logical table is to becreated, and then use a mouse or similar interface to indicate thecollection of cells that are to be included (at least initially) in thetable. In at least some embodiments, when a logical table 167 iscreated, metadata comprising an identifier of the table (e.g., auniversal unique identifier or UUID) may be added to a repository 155together with information indicating the member cells of the logicaltable. In addition, in various embodiments, respective row link recordscorresponding to each of the table's rows (e.g., row R-a of table 167Aand row R-b of table 167B) may be generated and stored as part of themetadata repository 155 at the time of table creation. Individual onesof the row link records may comprise respective immutable identifiers ofthe corresponding rows, which can in effect be used as pointers to therows from data sheet cells and/or sheets-based applications. In someembodiments, the identifiers generated may be unique within theworkspace 150, while in other embodiments UUIDs may be generated. Therow for which a given row link record is created may be referred to asthe source row of the row link record, and the table to which the sourcerow belongs may be referred to as the source table of the row linkrecord in various embodiments. In some embodiments, the immutableidentifier of a row link record may simply be referred to as a row linkfor the corresponding source row.

The automatically-generated row link record identifiers may be specifiedin the formulas of various data sheet cells to refer to the contents ofrespective source rows in various embodiments. For example, in sheet160A, cell 165A may include the row identifier for row R-a of table 167Aof sheet 160B, while cell 165B may include the row identifier for rowR-b of table 167B of sheet 160C. Individual cells such as 165A and 165Bwhich contain row identifiers may be referred to as row link cells insome embodiments. In at least one implementation, when an SDMS clientclicks on a value or token stored in a row link cell 165 via a mouse (orotherwise indicates that the value or token has been selected), thecursor may be moved automatically to the corresponding source row, in amanner similar to the way that HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) linkscan be used to navigate to referenced content in the world wide web. Invarious embodiments, the referencing cells such as 165A or 165B maythemselves be part of a logical table 167; such a table may be referredto as a referencing table or a target table with respect to the sourcetable of the referencing cell. In such a scenario, a record comprisingthe row identifier, indicating that a given cell 165 of the referencingtable is related to the source row of the source table, may be stored atthe SDMS. As such, row link records may be used to express relationshipsbetween rows of different logical tables, without requiring a user towrite any programming code in at least some embodiments.

Row identifiers may be termed immutable in various embodiments becausethe identifiers themselves may not be modified if/when the structure ofthe source table is modified, and hence may continue to refer to thesame data or cell contents to which they initially referred. Forexample, if/when a row or column is added to table 167A in theembodiment depicted in FIG. 1 , the row link cell 165A would stillcontinue to point to or refer to the cells that contain the contentsthat were in Row-a before the change to the table. If, after astructural change of this type is made to the source table, the contentsof the cells that were part of Row-a is changed, the content displayedin the row link cell 165A may be automatically updated to reflect theRow-a changes in the depicted embodiment. As long as the contents of theoriginally-referenced source row do not change, the content displayed inthe row link cell may remain unchanged in various embodiments, despiteany structural change to the source table. In some embodiments, if a rowidentifier is being used to refer to a given source row, deletion of thesource row may not be permitted by the SDMS, or a warning or errormessage may be displayed when such a deletion is attempted.

The content to be displayed in a row link cell 165 (and/or the format ofthe content) may be selected/indicated by an SDMS client in someembodiments. In at least one embodiment, a client may programmaticallysubmit a display specification for an individual row link record, or forall the row link records referencing source rows of a given sourcetable. The value(s) displayed in the row link cell (selected for examplefrom among the values of one or more columns of the source row, with theselected column names being indicated in the display specification) maybe formatted (e.g., as integers of a specified width, decimal numeralswith specified numbers of numerals after the decimal point, currencyvalues, dates, strings, etc.) according to the display specification. Adisplay specification may be stored as part of the row link record insome embodiments. A default display specification may be used by theSDMS if a client does not indicate one—e.g., the value in the first(left-most) column of the source row may be displayed in the row linkcell. In at least one embodiment, a token or symbol may be inserted intothe row link cell to indicate that it refers to a table row—e.g., thedisplayed value may appear underlined, or a special “link” symbol suchas an arrow may be displayed.

In at least some embodiments, the SDMS may enable clients to use one ormore functions to obtain or retrieve row identifiers. For example, aFindRow( ) function may be supported in some embodiments, to which aquery identifying a source logical table and one or morepredicates/clauses to be evaluated with respect to the rows of thesource table may be provided as inputs. When such a FindRow( ) functionis executed (e.g., to evaluate a formula of a row link cell, where theformula includes the call to FindRow( ), the identifier of a row linkrecord of a source row that satisfies the query (if any suchquery-satisfying rows are present in the source table) may be returned.In some embodiments, a self-reference function (e.g., “ThisRow( )”) maybe supported, which returns the row identifier of the row in whose cellthe self-reference function is entered as part of a formula. FindRow( )functions or the equivalent may also be invoked from within data sheetsbased applications in at least some embodiments, and may not necessarilybe used only within the data sheets themselves. Various other propertiesof row link records and associated interfaces, as well as examples ofthe use of row link records, are described below in further detail.

The SDMS 120 may also enable clients to utilize dynamically materializedviews (DMVs) on logical tables 167 in the depicted embodiment. Forexample, in response to a programmatic request indicating one or moreproperties of a view, the SDMS may store a metadata record or descriptorfor a DMV in repository 155. The descriptor may for example comprise (a)a filter query to be used to select a subset of cells from a sourcelogical table and (b) a current result of executing the filter query,indicating zero or more rows of the logical table that currently satisfythe filter query. In some embodiments, row identifiers of the rows thatsatisfy the query may be stored in the results portion of thedescriptor. The query may comprise one or more Booleanpredicates/clauses expressed in terms of the columns of the sourcelogical table in various embodiments—e.g., to obtain the contents ofrows of a table called Table1 whose Column1 value is zero, a filterquery with a syntax similar “Filter(Table1, “Table1.Column1==0”)” may beused.

The results of the query of the DMV may be displayed and/or used withinsheets-based applications in any of several ways in differentembodiments. In at least some embodiments, a summarized representationof the results may be shown in a cell whose formula indicates the DMV.Such cells may be referred to as DMV summary cells 169—e.g., summarycell 169A of sheet 160D shows a summary corresponding to a DMV definedon table 167A, while summary cell 169B shows a summary corresponding toa DMV defined on table 167B. In one embodiment, for example, a summarycell 169 may include a graphical filter symbol (e.g., a symbolrepresenting a funnel) as well as a dynamically updated property of thequery result (e.g., the number of rows of the source table that satisfythe query). In some embodiments, expanded representations of a DMV,comprising values of (or derived from) one or more columns of the rowsthat satisfy the query, may be displayed in one or more data sheets. Forexample, expanded DMV representation 170A corresponding to a DMV definedon table 167A or 167B may be shown in a collection of cells of sheet160D, and expanded DMV representation 170B corresponding to another DMV(or the same DMV) may be shown in a collection of cells of sheet 160G inthe depicted embodiment. Respective display specifications may be storedin the descriptor of a DMV in some embodiments, indicating which symbolsand/or column values should be included in a summary representationand/or an expanded representation in some embodiments. Clients mayprogrammatically indicate or modify such display requirements in variousembodiments using programmatic interfaces 177. User-defined namesindicated by clients may be stored for respective DMVs in someembodiments.

If and when the content of an underlying source table of a DMV changes,the filter query of the DMV may be re-executed in some embodiments, thestored results in the descriptor may be updated if needed, and thedisplayed contents of any summary representations and/or expandedrepresentations may be modified accordingly based on the results of there-execution in various embodiments. If a sorting criterion has beenspecified for the expanded representation, and the change in the queryresults affects a sort column value, rows of the expanded representationmay be dynamically rearranged with respect to one another in someembodiments. In at least one embodiment, a notification may be providedby the SDMS to an application deployment platform at which anapplication that references the DMV is running, indicating that a newresult of executing the filter query has been obtained. At thedeployment platform, output presented by the application may be modifiedbased at least in part on the new result in some embodiments.

A DMV may be created in response to a programmatic request submitted bya client, indicating for example the source logical table, the filterquery, one or more display specifications for the DMV, and/or otherparameters. In some embodiments, a function for creating a DMV (e.g., aFilter( ) function or a CreateView( ) function) may be defined at theSDMS and used as part of the formulas for one or more summary cells.Alternatively, a DMV may be created from, and/or utilized fromsheets-based applications in such embodiments. Aggregation functions(such as SUM, AVERAGE etc.) may be applied to DMV query results in atleast some embodiments. Pipelined DMVs, in which for example one view isgenerated by applying a query to the results of another view, may besupported in at least one embodiment.

In one embodiment, a DMV may be defined by indicating concurrentpresence and absence criteria with respect to rows within other DMVs orlogical tables. For example, a programmatic request may be received atthe SDMS to create a DMV (DMV1), such that parameters of the requestindicate a presence criterion with respect to a first source data set(e.g., another DMV (DMV2), or a logical table (T1)) and an absencecriterion with respect to a second source data set (e.g., another DMV(DMV3) or a logical table (T2)). Only those rows that are present in thefirst source data set, and absent from the second data set, may beincluded in the result representing DMV1 in such a scenario. In effect,the logical equivalent of a rule to include, within a new DMV, cellsthat are in the first source data set and not in the second source dataset may be indicated in such a request. The particular rows or cellsthat meet both the presence and absence criteria may be identified bythe SDMS, and included in the new dynamically materialized view. Similartechniques may be used to generate DMVs that represent the logicalintersection of two source data sets in some embodiments. Consider thefollowing example scenario in which a logical table Votes has columns[User], [Topic] and [Answer] and a second logical table Topics listspossible topics on which votes are to be obtained. Syntax similar to[Votes2]=Filter(Votes, “Votes[User]=[ThisUser]”) and [OpenTopics]=Filter(Topics, “Not(Topics IN [Votes2]”) may be used to listthose topics on which a user represented by ThisUser has not voted. Inanother example of filtering using the absence criterion, consider ascenario in which a table Bookings has columns named [Room], [StartDate], [Checkout Date] and [Customer], while a Rooms table has columnsnamed [Room] and {beds]. Given a desired customer booking start date[CSD] and checkout date [CCD], the set of booked rooms may be obtainedusing a DMV generated using syntax similar to the following:[BookedRooms]=Filter(Bookings, “Bookings[ Start Date]>=[CSD] ANDBookings[StartDate]<[CCD]) OR (Bookings[Checkout Date]>=[CSD] ANDBookings[Checkout Date]<=[CCD])”). Then, syntax similar to [FreeRooms]=Filter(Rooms,“NOT (Rooms IN [BookedRooms][Rooms]”) may be used tolist rooms that are still available in the desired date range.

In some embodiments, clients may be able to specify deferral settingsfor a DMV (or a row link record), indicating that instead of immediatelyupdating results representing changes to the source table or source row,notifications indicating that the source row/table content has changedmay be sent to cells/applications that refer to the DMVs or row linkrecords. In such a scenario, the changed results may be propagated fordisplay, or to cause one or more operations at an application, inresponse to refresh requests received after the notifications have beensent.

In some embodiments, an auto-generated template-based sheet hierarchy,such as hierarchy 154, may be created on behalf of authorized users insome embodiments. In at least one embodiment, a client may designate oneor more cells of a given data sheet 160E, such as a column containingcell 156A, as parent cells. Such a designation may imply that if andwhen a new parent cell is added (or data is entered into a previouslyblank parent cell), one or more child sheets such as child data sheet160F is to be instantiated automatically by the SDMS 120 in the depictedembodiment. A sheet such as 160E containing one or more parent cells maybe referred to as a parent sheet in some embodiments; note that a datasheet may be both a parent sheet and a child sheet in at least someembodiments. Child data sheets may also be referred to as details sheetsin one embodiment, as they may often include supporting details aboutdata that is summarized in the parent sheets. The properties of thechild data sheet may be specified by the SDMS client, e.g., by providingnames and/or formulas for various cells of the child sheet, and/or byproviding example cell contents for the child sheet which can beextrapolated/generalized by the SDMS. Properties of the child data sheetmay be stored in the form of persistent metadata objects calledtemplates in some embodiments, which may be stored in a metadatarepository 155. In various embodiments, just as data sheet cells maycontain row link identifiers or DMV identifiers, they may also containsheet identifiers (e.g., when referencing to cells within child sheetsor parent sheets). Hierarchies of data sheets may be used in conjunctionwith row links and/or DMVs, for example, in some scenarios in which thedata to be referenced cannot fit into a single row and is thereforeplaced in a child sheet. In one such example scenario, several childsheets may each contain detailed information about a financial portfolioof an individual (e.g., one row for each of numerous equity positions),and row links or DMVs defined on the contents of the child sheets, usingthe child sheet identifiers in the definitions of the DMVs or row links,may be used to present summary information (e.g., for a group ofindividuals) in a parent sheet. In another example scenario, a DMV maybe defined using a query that accesses respective cells at a specifiedlocation within several or all of the child sheets of a hierarchy, andperforms computations based on the values stored in those child sheetcells.

Multi-level hierarchies of parent and child data sheets may be generatedautomatically based on templates in some embodiments—e.g., sheet 160Fmay be created as a child sheet of parent cell 156A of sheet 160E, sheet160G may be created as a child sheet of parent cell 156B of sheet 160F,and so on. In at least some embodiments, a lazy or on-demandmaterialization strategy may be used for child sheets—e.g., while a newchild sheet may be logically instantiated as soon as data is enteredinto a parent cell (or as soon as a new parent cell is created), thememory/storage to be used for data of the child sheet may notnecessarily be allocated until the child sheet is accessed. Rulesregarding the accessibility of data among the sheets of a hierarchy mayalso be stored in the metadata repository 155 in at least someembodiments—e.g., such rules may indicate which portions of a childsheet are to be accessible from a parent sheet and vice versa, whichupdates to a child sheet are to be propagated to parent sheets and viceversa, etc. In at least some embodiments, for example, depending on therules set up, when a value of a cell in a child data sheet is modified,a corresponding child-dependent value may be updated in one or moreparent sheets. In at least some embodiments, one or more sheets of ahierarchy 154 may include row link cells, DMV summary cells and/orexpanded representations of DMVs (such as 170B). The raw data forvarious cells (e.g., data that is not computed and updated automaticallybased on values of other cells) may be stored in a separate repository160 in the depicted embodiment. In at least some embodiments, parentcells may be distinguished from other cells within data sheets using,for example, a special symbol, font or color scheme. In one embodiment,a menu element (such as a drop-down menu option) may be employed by aclient to designate that a particular cell is a parent cell. Thespecific values/labels that are displayed within the parent cells may beselected or specified by clients in some embodiments. In someembodiments, auto-generated hierarchies such as hierarchy 154 may notnecessarily be supported at an SDMS that supports row link recordsand/or DMVs.

Example Creation and Materialization of Row Link Records

FIG. 2 illustrates example automated creation of row link records when aportion of a data sheet is designated as a logical table, according toat least some embodiments. A data sheet 210 may store a data set of oneor more applications in the depicted embodiment at an SDMS similar toSDMS 120 of FIG. 1 . A programmatic interface may be used to designate aset of cells 215 of the data sheet, arranged in one or more rows witheach row comprising one or more columns, as a logical table in thedepicted embodiment, e.g., by issuing a “Create Table” command via agraphical or non-graphical interface and selecting the cells 215.

In response to the designation of cells 215 as a logical table, a tablerecord (not shown in FIG. 2 ) with a system-generated table identifierand/or a user-friendly name of the table may be stored in variousembodiments. In addition, as indicated by arrow 230, N row link records240 (e.g., 240A-240D in the depicted scenario in which the source tablehas four rows) may be automatically created and stored at thesheets-based data management system (SDMS) being used in the depictedembodiment. One row link record may be created per row of the sourcetable. In some embodiments, as shown in contents 260A, a given row linkrecord such as 240A may comprise a row identifier 250A, an optionaldisplay specification 254A, and/or an optional user-defined name 252A.The row identifier 250A may be generated at the SDMS, e.g., as a unique64-bit numeric value concatenated with a random set of characters, andmay be unique with respect to the workspace in which data sheet 210 wascreated in some embodiments. In some embodiments, portions of atimestamp or information identifying the client on whose behalf theworkspace was created may also be used to generate the uniqueidentifier. In one embodiment, universal unique identifiers (UUIDs) maybe used. In one embodiment, a row link record 240 may only comprise arow identifier 250; as such, in effect the terms “row link record” and“row identifier” may be synonymous in such an embodiment.

The display specification 254A may be used to indicate how the contentsof the source row are to be displayed within a referencing cell (i.e., acell whose formula indicates the row link record or identifier) in someembodiments. For example, the display specification 254A may indicatewhich columns of the source row should be displayed, how the columnvalues should be arranged relative to one another, how they should beformatted, and so on. To indicate that the value of column1 and column2of a source row, separated by an arrow “→”, should be displayed asintegers, for example, in one embodiment a display specification may beexpressed using syntax similar to the following: ““% d→%d”,column1,column2” where the “% d”s indicate formatting as integers. Insome embodiments, syntax similar to “% a” may be supported to indicatethat automatic formatting is to be performed at the SDMS (e.g., based onthe SDMS's algorithms for inferring data types and default formats forvarious data types). Default display specifications may be assigned bythe SDMS for row link records for which the client does not specifythem. In at least some embodiments, a string representation of a givensource row may be generated based on the display specification 254 ofthe corresponding row link record. Such string representations forrespective rows may be used, for example, to perform comparisons or sortoperations with respect to other rows in at least some embodiments. Forexample, consider a scenario in which the display specification for aparticular row link record results in the string “John,Department-A”being generated to represent the source row of the row link (the sourcerow may include a column for an employee name, such as “John”, as wellas a column for a department, such as “Department-A Assume further thata string “Susan.Department-B” is generated along similar lines foranother row. Then, in at least some embodiments, the strings“John.Department-A” and “Susan.Department-B” may be compared to oneanother to deduce that the contents of the two rows differ, andsimilarly, the string representations of these and other rows may beused to sort a collection of rows if desired. In some embodiments, thestring representations may be displayed using “pill” user interfaceelements (e.g., pill-shaped icons containing a portion or all of thestring).

A user-defined name 252A (such as “Ann-row” to indicate a source rowassociated with an individual named Ann) may be indicated by an SDMSclient in some embodiments as an easy-to-interpret alias for the sourcerow. The row identifier 250A and/or the user-defined name of a given rowof a source table may in effect be used as pointers to refer to the rowfrom other cells in various embodiments. In some embodiments, a clientmay obtain a row identifier of a source row with desired properties byinvoking a FindRow( ) function from a cell of data sheet 212 (or fromcells of data sheet 210 itself). Parameters of the FindRow function mayinclude the source table name or identifier, as well as a querycomprising predicates or clauses to be matched by a row of the sourcetable. The evaluation of the FindRow as part of the formula of areferencing cell may return the value of the row identifier of a rowthat satisfies the query, and the contents displayed in the referencingcell may be selected based on the display specification of thecorresponding row link record. In at least some embodiments, aself-reference function may be supported for table rows—e.g., a functionsuch as “ThisRow( )”, when entered as part of the formula of a cell Cjin row Rm of a table Tk, may return the row identifier of the row Rm. Anexample of the use of such a self-reference function is provided belowin the context of the description of FIG. 7 . Note that row links may beused to extract specific columns from the referenced rows of logicaltables in various embodiments, and not just for referring to entirerows. For example, syntax similar to the following may be used to assignthe value of Column-B of a row of Table-A using a row link to a cell:“=FindRow(Table-A, <criteria>)[Column-B].

Example Creation and Materialization of Dynamically Materialized Views

FIG. 3 illustrates an example creation of a dynamically materializedview associated with a logical table of a data sheet, according to atleast some embodiments. In the depicted embodiment, a data sheet 310 maybe used to store a data set of an application at an SDMS similar to SDMS120 of FIG. 1 , and a logical table 320 may be created in response to aprogrammatic request from a client. As shown, table 320 may comprisesome number of rows and columns. The client may create a dynamicallymaterialized view (DMV) 330 by entering a function (e.g., a “Filter”function) as the formula for a cell 340 of the data sheet 310 (or anyother data sheet of the workspace in which data sheet 310 is included)in the depicted embodiment. The parameters of the function may includethe filter query criteria to be used to determine whether a given row ofthe source logical table 320 is to be included in the materialized view.Such query criteria may be expressed as predicates on one or more of thecolumns (e.g., Col-A, Col-B and/or Col-C in the depicted examplescenario) of the source logical table—e.g., if Col-B contains numericalvalues, the predicate “Col-B>0” or the equivalent may be used to filteronly those rows in which Col-B's value is more than zero. Note that inat least some data sheets-based storage systems, strong data typing maynot be enforced for values stored in the sheets, so in some cases agiven column of a table such as 320 may include values of multiple datatypes—e.g., some values may be integers, others may be strings, othersmay be dates, and so on. In such a scenario, the SDMS may decide how totransform or cast a given value in a column into a data type that can beused to check whether a query predicate or clause is satisfied in someembodiments. Alternatively, in some embodiments, when evaluating a queryof a DMV (or a FindRow( ) function) the SDMS may ignore rows whose datatypes cannot be mapped to a query predicate's data type, or issuewarnings or error messages when a data type mismatch occurs when a queryis evaluated.

In cell 340 in the depicted embodiment, whose formula defines a DMV onsource table 320, a summary representation of the result of the DMVquery may be displayed. As shown in the enlarged representation 347 ofcell 340, the summary representation may for example include a graphicalfilter symbol 341 as well as a dynamically updated query result property342 in some embodiments. The dynamically updated query result propertymay, for example, comprise a cardinality or count of the rows thatcurrently satisfy the DMV's filter query. Other examples of dynamicallyupdated query result properties may include, for example, a binary value(zero to indicate that no rows satisfy the query, and 1 to indicate thatat least one row satisfies the query), a timestamp indicating when themost recent query result was computed, or some combination of suchelements in different embodiments. In one embodiment, a DMV with a lowcardinality may be displayed by enumerating the respective row linkdisplays for one or more of the result rows of the DMV filter query.

A descriptor 360 indicating various properties of the DMV 330 may begenerated and stored at the SDMS, e.g., in a metadata repository similarto repository 155 shown in FIG. 1 . The descriptor 360 may, for example,include a DMV identifier 361 (such as a UUID), an optional user-definedname 362 for the DMV (e.g., “Sales-dept-DMV”), the DMV filter query 363,a representation 364 of the most-recently-computed results of the filterquery, one or more display specifications 365 and/or coordinates of thesummary cell 340 whose formula defines the DMV in some embodiments. Inat least some embodiments, the representation 364 of the results mayinclude the row identifiers of the source table rows that satisfy thequery. The display specification(s) 365 may indicate the contents to bedisplayed in a summary representation (e.g., in cell 340) of the DMV,and/or the contents to be displayed in an expanded representation of theDMV (not shown in FIG. 3 ) which may comprise values of one or more ofthe columns of the query result rows. In some embodiments, the contentsof the descriptor 360 shown in FIG. 3 may be distributed among severaldifferent data structures instead of being included in a single datastructure or record. In various embodiments, the SDMS may store one ormore internal records or indications of the association of the summarycell 340 with the DMV 330—e.g., a record representing the contents ofthe cell 340 may include the DMV identifier 361, and/or the descriptor360 may include the summary cell coordinates 366.

The DMV 330 may be referred to in any of several ways, e.g., from othercells of the data sheet or from sheets-based applications in thedepicted embodiment. For example, the cell coordinates of summary cell340 may be used to refer to the DMV as part of a formula of anothercell; when the formula of the other cell is evaluated, the currentresults of the query 363 may be obtained as part of the evaluation. Inanother example, a user-defined name 362 may be used within a formula ofanother cell. Just as in the case where the coordinates of cell 340 wereused in the formula, evaluation of a cell formula that includes theuser-defined name 362 may also include obtaining the current results ofthe query 363. In at least some embodiments, a DMV may be referred to bycontaining it in a column of a table row—e.g., the syntax [Tasks] in arow of a Project Table may be used to refer to a DMV of the tasksrelated to the project represented by that row.

If and when the contents of the source logical table 320 change, thequery of the DMV may be re-evaluated in the depicted embodiment. Theresults stored in the descriptor may be updated if the results of thequery change. In various embodiments, the dynamically updated queryresult property 342 may be modified as soon it changes, and/or contentsof an expanded view of the DMV may be updated as well. In someembodiments, notifications may be transmitted to applications thatutilize the DMV (e.g., to populate a portion of a layout of a screen ata phone or tablet at which application output is shown) to indicate thatthe result of the DMV filter query have changed. In response to suchnotifications, in some embodiments a refresh request may be sent to theSDMS to provide the updated results, and the application's output may bemodified accordingly. In some embodiments, updates to the summaryrepresentation and/or the expanded representation of a DMV may bedeferred, e.g., until programmatic requests to refresh the summary orexpanded views are received at the SDMS. Note that in variousembodiments, multiple DMVs may be defined on a given logical table (oreven using the same filter query on a given logical table); each suchDMV may be assigned a unique identifier and treated as a separate view.In at least one embodiment, the query results 364 may not be stored aspart of a DMV descriptor—e.g., the query results may be storedseparately, or only generated when needed.

Example Automated Responses to Updates to Source Logical Tables

FIG. 4 illustrates example automated responses to an update of a logicaltable of a data sheet, according to at least some embodiments. A datasheet 410 stored at an SDMS similar to that shown in FIG. 1 comprises asource logical table 420 in the depicted embodiment. A dynamicallymaterialized view is created with respect to table 420, with a summaryrepresentation of the able being presented in cell 444. At the point intime depicted in the pre-modification version of data sheet 410 shown,the summary cell 444 indicates that the number of rows that satisfy theDMV's filter query criteria is 2.

In another data sheet whose pre-modification state is shown in element412, an expanded representation 431 of the DMV, illustrating one or morecolumns of two rows that satisfy the DMV query, with the rows sortedaccording to a client-specified criterion, is also shown in thepre-modification state.

As indicated by arrow 445, contents of the source table 420 are modifiedin the depicted embodiment, e.g., by adding a row. A new row link record440 may be created automatically in the depicted embodiment.Earlier-created row link records may remain unmodified despite thechange in the structure of the source table 420, as indicated in element440. Each such earlier-created row link record may continue to representthe content of the same rows which were being represented prior to theaddition of the row.

In the depicted example scenario, when the contents of the source table430 change, the query of the DMV whose summary representation is shownin cell 440 may be re-executed, and three rows may now satisfy the queryinstead of two rows. The displayed DV result property (the cardinalityof the query result) may be dynamically update (the number 2 may bereplaced by the number 3), as indicated in the post-modification DMVsummary cell 444.

In addition, as indicated by arrow 447, the changes may also bepropagated, as soon as they are made, to the expanded representation ofsorted DMV 431; the expanded representation may be dynamically updatedand also dynamically re-sorted in the depicted example scenario. Thatis, the relative positions of the rows of the expanded representationmay be rearranged as a result of re-sorting. For example, while Row-Lused to be presented immediately below Row-K prior to the modificationof the source table, Row-M may be inserted between Row-K and Row-L dueto the source table modification. Note that similar rearrangements ofrows in expanded representations of DMVs may occur even without a changeto the total count of query result rows in some cases—e.g., as a resultof changing a value in a sort column (or a column whose values are usedas part of the sort criterion for the referencing table) within a row inthe source table, the rows in the expanded DMV representation may beautomatically rearranged in various embodiments.

Example Automatically Populated Pick List Interface Element

In some embodiments, a graphical user interface component referred to asa pick list may be used to populate table cells using row links. FIG. 5illustrates an example use of an automatically generated pick list toindicate relationships between rows of a pair of logical tables,according to at least some embodiments. As shown, in the depictedembodiment, at least two data sheets 510 and 512 may be used to storedata sets related to an application at an SDMS similar to SDMS 120 ofFIG. 1 . When a collection of cells of sheet 510 is designated as alogical table 549, a row link record set 522 for the newly-created tablemay be generated and stored automatically in a workspace-level row linkrepository 560 in the depicted embodiment. For example, row link records540A-540D may be stored corresponding to table 549.

The row link repository 560 may comprise respective row link sets formvarious other tables of the workspace, such as set 532 comprises rowlink records 540K-540M for a table 547, and row link record set 533comprising row links 540P-54-R for table 550 created within data sheet512.

A client of the SDMS may use a drop-down graphical user element called apick list 570 to populate one or more cells of a given table such as 550with values that are based on contents of other tables. For example,when the client indicates that a pick list 570 is to be used to populatea given target cell of table 550, the SDMS may provide an interfaceenabling the client to indicate a source table. After the source table(e.g., table 549 or 547) is indicated, the rows of the source table maybe made available for selection in the pick list, and the client maypick any row. Internally at the SDMS, row link identifiers may be usedto populate the pick list, while to an end user the values shown in thepick list may depend on the display specifications of the row linkrecords. The row identifier of the selected row may be stored in thetarget cell being populated in the depicted embodiment, and the contentdisplayed in the target cell may be determined based on the displayspecification associated with the row identifier. In at least someembodiments, the options indicated in a pick list may represent rows ofany of the tables in the workspace (and/or the rows of any DMVs createdin the workspace), thus allowing SDMS clients to represent immutablerelationships between any two rows of any two tables or views. Note thatat least in some embodiments, pick lists may be used to populate anycell of a data sheet, whether that cell is part of a logical table ornot; as such, the use of pick lists may not be limited to populatingtables.

Example Use of Filter Functions

In some embodiments, as indicated earlier, filter functions (with asyntax similar to “Filter(<parameter-list>)”) may be used to generatedynamically materialized views. FIG. 6 , FIG. 7 and FIG. 8 collectivelyillustrate a simple example use of filter functions to indicaterelationships among rows of a pair of logical tables, according to atleast some embodiments.

In FIG. 6 , a subset of elements of a graphical user interface for adata sheet of an SDMS similar to SDMS 120 of FIG. 1 is shown. Thegraphical user interface comprises a menu section 610, comprising a picklist selection menu element 602, and a cell section 612 comprising aplurality of cells arranged in a two-dimensional grid. Within cellsection 612, two logical tables (Table-A and Table-B) have been created.Table-A comprises three columns, named “Task”, “Team” and “Due date”respectively, and is used to store information about the teams (i.e.,groups of employees) assigned to respective tasks of an example softwaredevelopment project as well as the due dates of those tasks. Table-Bcontains information about the teams that can be assigned to the tasksshown in Table-A. At the point of time represented in FIG. 6 . Table Bhas a single column called “Teams”, in which four teams are named: “ProdMgmt” (product management), “SWDev” (software developers), “QA” (QualityAssurance) and “Production” (a team in charge of a productionenvironment for the applications/programs being developed). The tasks towhich teams are assigned include “Write spec” (writing a specificationof the software program(s) being developed), “Code” (writing the sourcecode for the programs), “Test set 1” and “Test set 2” (representing twophases of testing of the code), and “Deploy” (representing deployment ofthe tested code to a production environment). Respective due dates havebeen entered into Table-A, but teams have not yet been entered.

As shown in the text labeled 1, the “Team” column of Table-A may beselected by an SDMS client or user to populate the column's values. Thepick list menu element 602 may be selected from the menu section 610, asindicated by the text labeled 2. This may indicate to the SDMS that apick list is to be used to populate at least some elements of theselected “Team” column.

As shown in the text labeled 3, a pick list details interface element644 may be displayed at this point. Within the pick list detailselement, the client may be able to select the source object type 630 forwhich pick list rows are to be selected. For example, the source objectsmay include either tables or DMVs (referred to as “Filters” in the userinterface), and the client has selected “Table” as the source objecttype in the depicted scenario. After the object type is selected, a listof accessible/available instances of that type may be shown (e.g., namesof all the tables created in the workspace to which the client isgranted access); in the depicted scenario, the client has selectedTable-B as the source object 635. The OK button of the pick list detailsinterface 644 may be used to submit the request for picking rows fromthe specified table or DMV (filter) by the client.

After the client has indicated the source object for populating the“Team” column via the pick list, representations of respective rows ofthe source object may be displayed in various embodiments, and theclient may select the specific row to be linked to a given cell of theTeam column from the respective rows. For example, for the “Write Spec”task, the row corresponding to “Prod Mgmt” may be selected, while forthe “Code” task, the row corresponding to “SWDev” may be selected, andso on. The representations of the rows of the source object that areshown to the client (enabling the client to select one of the rows foreach cell of the “Team” column) may be based on the displayspecification of the corresponding row link records of the source objectin various embodiments. Corresponding to each cell Ck of the “Team”column for which a row Rm is selected via the pick list, the rowidentifier of the selected row Rm may be stored in some embodiments asan indication that the cell Ck is associated with Rm.

Within FIG. 7 , in the state 701 of cell section 612 of the example datasheet introduced in FIG. 6 , several of the cells of the “Team” columnof Table-A have been populated using a pick list, with respective linksestablished from each Table-A row to one of the rows of Table-B. Forexample, the teams for “Write spec”, “Code” and “Test set 2” have beenselected using a pick list. In at least some embodiments, a visualindication that a cell was populated using a pick list (e.g., icon 766)may be provided in the cell. In at least some embodiments, a visualindication may also be provided if the contents of a cell are based on arow link (which may or may not have been selected via a pick list). Forexample, the text “Prod Mgmt” in the “Write spec” row may be shown in aparticular color or font selected to indicate that it uses a row link.As shown in state 701, not all the elements of a column may be of thesame type—e.g., while the “Prod Mgmt”, “SWDev” and “QA” elements are rowlinks selected via a pick list, the plain-text “TBD” 767 may be used forthe “Test set 1” task, and a row link 768 that was not selected via apicklist may be used for the “Deploy” task. Such heterogeneity regardingpermitted data types may be familiar to users of conventionalspreadsheets, and may make it easier for such users to adapt to the SDMSwhile also taking advantage of the advanced relational database-likefeatures of the SDMS. In state 701, the client has also expanded TableB, adding a new “Tasks” column, with the goal of summarizing the tasksthat are assigned to each Team represented in Table-B. In order to doso, the client may use a graphical user interface element to add theTasks column and then use a “Filter” function to define a dynamicallymaterialized view of the tasks assigned to each team.

As shown, syntax similar to “=Filter(Table-A, “Table-A[Team]=ThisRow())” may be used for the formula of the “Tasks” cell for the “Prod Mgmt”row in at least some embodiments. The example Filter function shown maybe processed as follows: the first parameter, Table-A, may be identifiedas a source object of a DMV, and the second parameter“Table-A[Team]=ThisRow( ))” may be interpreted as the query to be usedto select rows of the source object that are to be included in the DMV.A rich, highly expressive SQL-like syntax may be supported for thequeries of Filter functions in various embodiments. The query shown instate 701 utilizes a self-reference function “ThisRow( )”, whichevaluates to the row in which the function is entered as part of a cellformula. In effect, the result of evaluating ThisRow( ) in the first rowof Table-B is the row identifier of that first row, the result ofevaluating ThisRow( ) in the second row of Table-B is the row identifierof the second row, and so on. The query illustrated would return allrows of Table-A in which the Team column value is the row identifier ofthe current row of Table-B; as such, the count of rows returned for the“Prod Mgmt” row would match the number of rows in Table-A in which “ProdMgmt” is the team assigned. In some embodiments, respective Filterfunctions similar to that shown in state 701 may be defined for each ofthe Tasks column of Table-B by the client with the help of a graphicaluser interface element that allows the client to specify the samefunction for each row without having to re-enter the entire syntax ofthe function.

In state 702 shown in FIG. 7 , the Team column of Table-A has been fullypopulated using a pick list, and the Tasks column of Table-B has alsobeen fully populated using the Filter function to create a respectivesummary view of a DMV in each of the cells of the Tasks column. A filtersymbol (similar to a funnel) representing the DMV is shown in each ofthe cells, along with a dynamically update representation of a propertyof the current result of evaluating the DMV query. In the depictedexample, the dynamically updated property is the cardinality of thequery result—that is, the number of rows of Table-A that satisfy thequery. Thus, for example, because there are two rows in Table-A with“QA” as the Team, the Tasks column for the QA team displays the numeral“2”. Each of the other rows of Table-B shows a numeral “1” in the Taskscolumn, along with the filter symbol, because there is currently onlyone row in Table-A for the corresponding team represented in the Teamscolumn of Table-B—that is, only one row in Table-A refers to the “ProdMgmt” team, the “SWDev” team, and the “Production” team respectively. Ifand when a change is made to the contents of the Team column in Table-A,the DMVs of Table-B may be dynamically re-evaluated, and if necessarythe summary values shown in the Tasks column may be updated. Forexample, if the “Deploy” task were also assigned to the “QA” team, thenumber shown in the QA row's Tasks column may be instantaneously (ornear-instantaneously) changed to “3”, and the number shown in theProduction row's Tasks column may be instantaneously (ornear-instantaneously) changed to “0”.

In state 801 of the cell section 612 shown in FIG. 8 , another columnhas been dynamically added to Table 2, and has been populated using apipelined Filter function. This new column is titled “Task-by-Apr1”, andis used to represent the subset of tasks, for each team of Table-B, thathave a due date (shown in the “Due Date” column) before April 1 in thedepicted example. The DMVs defined for the Tasks column already haveinformation about the rows of Table-A that match the team names ofTable-B. Note that although these existing DMVs are displayed in summaryform, the use of row links as the underlying objects used to associatethe rows of Table-A to the Tasks column of Table-B enables informationregarding the Due Date column to be obtained via the row links.Generally speaking, a pipelined Filter may be defined as a Filterfunction whose input object (the object on which a query is to be run)is itself a DMV corresponding to another Filter. As such DMVs may betreated analogously to logical tables in at least some embodiments, atleast for the purposes of defining DMVs via Filter functions.

Assume that the DMV assigned to the Tasks column of the Prod Mgmt row ofTable 2 can be referred to using the syntax “[Tasks]” in the scenariodepicted in FIG. 8 . Syntax similar to =Filter([Tasks], “Table-A[DueDate]<=Date(2019,04,01)”) may then be used to define another filter, tobe used to populate the Tasks-by-Apr1 column of Table-B. Note that theremay be several different ways to generate the equivalent of a givenpipelined DMV—e.g., a more elaborate query on the source logical tablemay be constructed and used in an un-pipelined or standalone DMV (suchas “=Filter(Table-A, “Table-A[Team]=ThisRow( ) AND Table-A[DueDate]<=April 1”)”, the definition of the inner Filter may be fullyincorporated into the outer Filter (as in “=Filter(Filter(Table-A,“Table-A[Team]=ThisRow( ))”)[Due Date]<=April 1”, and so on. A givenfilter F1 may be referenced within another filter F2 using an identifierassigned to F1 (e.g., a user-defined name, or a name/UUID defined by theSDMS), the coordinates of a cell whose formula is used to define F1, orby providing the full definition of F1 as a parameter of the Filter callto create F2 in some embodiments.

In state 802 of cell section 812, the team name “Production” has beenchanged to “Ship”. In accordance with a “live link” approach employed atthe SDMS, the contents of the Team column of Table-A may beinstantaneously or near-instantaneously updated to propagate the changemade to Table-B—e.g., the Team name shown for the Deploy task may bechanged to “Ship”.

Example Dynamically Re-Sorted DMV

FIG. 9 illustrates an example of automated updating and re-sorting of adynamically materialized view, according to at least some embodiments.In state 901 of a cell section 912 of a data sheet managed at an SDMSsimilar to SDMS 120 of FIG. 1 , two logical tables are shown.

SalesPerson table 903 contains information about sales persons of anexample organization with employees distributed across severalgeographical regions. The names of the sales persons (e.g., “Anne A.”,“Boyd D.”, etc.,) are shown in the SPName column, the region in whichthe sales person is based (e.g., R1, R2, or R3) is shown in the Regioncolumn, and the total sales achieved by the sales person over some timeperiod, expressed in dollars, is shown in the Sales column. TheRegionSales table 905 utilizes a SUM aggregation function to store,corresponding to each region indicated in the SalesPerson table 903, thetotal amount of sales accrued by sales persons of that region. Thus, forexample, query syntax logically equivalent to “[TotalSales]=SUM(Filter(SalesPerson,“SalesPerson[Region]=[Region]”)[Sales])may be used to populate the Total Sales column of RegionSales table 905.In addition, a dynamically sorted DMV 907 may be generated using syntaxsimilar to =Filter(RegionSales,“RegionSales[Total Sales]>200,000” ORDERBY RegionSales[Total Sales] Desc”), which shows regions with total salesgreater than $200,000, in descending order of total sales. In state 901,the region R2 is the only region with sales that exceed $200,000 (due toCathy C., whose sales amount is $201,000) so only one row is shown inthe expanded view of the DMV. In the source RegionSales table of theDMV, rows for each of the three regions are shown. The row for regionR3, in which two employees are based (Anne A. with $150,000 in sales,and Elvis E., with $35,000 in sales) shows a total sales amount of$185,000, while the row for region R1 shows a total sales amount of$105,000 (the sum of Boyd B.'s $10,000 and Dana D.'s $95,000).

As indicated by arrow 950, the SalesPerson table 903 may be modified toindicate that Elvis E. sales figures have increased to $65,000. Thecontents of the Total Sales column of RegionSales table 905 may bemodified instantaneously, or near-instantaneously, in state 902 of thedata sheet in the depicted embodiment to reflect the change to thesource logical table 903, with the total for R3 going up to $215000(since Elvis E.'s sales have increased by $30,000). In addition, theexpanded view of the DMV 907 may also be dynamically updated andre-sorted due to the changes: now, (a) an additional row representing R3is shown in DMV 907 and (b) based on the sort criteria, the row for R3in the DMV 907 is above the row for R2, even though in the RegionSalestable, the row for R3 is below the row for R2. As such, dynamic updatesmay not only change computed values of cells containing DMV results (asin the RegionSales table), but also rearrange the presented rows of aDMV, illustrate one example feature that provides a superior userexperience for SDMS users relative to users of other types of storageservices. Note that in at least some embodiments, dynamic updates of thekind illustrated in FIG. 9 may be utilized not just within data sheetsbut also in applications that use data sheets for their data sets. Forexample, when the kind of change that is shown in FIG. 9 is made to thedata set of an application deployed potentially to hundreds or thousandsof application execution platforms (such as laptops, desktops, phones,tablets, audio-driven intelligent assistant devices, augmentedreality/virtual reality interfaces, and the like), the applicationoutput presented at those execution platforms may also changenear-instantaneously. In some embodiments, the SDMS may also support thedynamic re-sorting of logical tables (for example, the RegionSales tablemay itself be sorted dynamically on [Total Sales]), in addition tosupporting dynamic re-sorting of DMVs.

Example DMV Based on Presence-and-Absence Criteria

In some embodiments, an SDMS may support the ability to define DMVsbased on the presence of a row (or group of cells) in one source dataset, and the concurrent absence (or presence) of that row (or group ofcells) in another source data set, e.g., without requiring locks orother conventional concurrency control mechanisms to be used. FIG. 10 aand FIG. 10 b collectively illustrate examples of the use of dynamicallymaterialized views defined using presence and/or and absence criteria,according to at least some embodiments. FIG. 10 a shows a pair oflogical tables associated with a polling application, as well as a DMVgenerated from the pair. A Polls table 1001 comprises a Poll column, anda Questions column. Entries in the Poll column indicate the names ofvarious polls being conducted (e.g., a Favorite Car pool, a FavoritePizza poll, etc.) among a group of users or individuals. The Questionscolumn represents, for each poll, a set of questions that may be askedin the poll. For example, in the Favorite Pizza poll, the questions mayinclude “What is your favorite pizza topping?”, “What is your favoritepizza crust type?” etc. The questions themselves may be stored in adifferent table not shown in FIG. 10 a . A DMV may be generated on thetable containing questions to populate the Questions column entries ofthe Polls table—e.g., as shown, the Favorite Car poll may currently have5 associated questions, while the Favorite Pizza poll may currently have3 associated questions. The UserPollData table 1002 may comprise threecolumns: a User column identifying users, a Poll column indicating apoll in which the user has participated, and an Answers columnindicating the number of questions of that poll that have been answeredby the user. In the depicted embodiment, the SDMS may support thecapability of generating DMVs that are defined in terms of a presencerequirement with respect to a data set, as in the case of thePolls-in-use DMV 1011. Using syntax similar to “=Filter(Polls, “Poll INUserPollData[Poll]”), the set of polls that have at least one answeredquestion by at least one user may be determined dynamically in thedepicted embodiment. The source data sets in this example are (a) thePolls table, and (b) the set of Polls listed in the Poll column of theUserPollData table, and DMV 1011 (using the “IN” syntax) may be used todetermine the intersection of these two source data sets.

FIG. 10 b illustrates an example use of a dynamically materialized viewdefined using a combination of a presence criterion and an absencecriterion. A portion of an example data sheets based applicationpertaining to the reservation of hotel rooms is implemented using twotables: a Bookings table 1050 and a Rooms table 1052. The rooms table1052 indicates the number of beds (in the Beds column) in each ofvarious hotel rooms (identified in the Room column). Each row of theBookings table 1050 represents a reservation for a room (indicated inthe Room column, which may be populated via row links to the Roomstable), StartDate and EndDate columns for the start and end dates of thereservation, and an indication of the customer for whom the room isreserved (in the Customer column). Assume that a reservation is to bemade for some customer, based on a requested start date(RequestedStartDate) and a requested end date (RequestedEndDate). Insuch a scenario, a BookedRooms DMV 1055 may be generated to identify theset of reservations which are in conflict with the requested date, usingsyntax similar to that shown in FIG. 10 b . Then, a second DMV 1056 maybe generated, using the BookedRooms DMV as one of its source data setsand the Rooms table as a second source data set, to identify rooms thatare available during the requested date range. Syntax similar toFilter(Rooms, “NOT (Rooms IN [BookedRooms][Room])”) may be used in thedepicted embodiment to identify rooms that are (a) present in a sourcedata set comprising the Rooms table and (b) absent from the set ofalready-reserved rooms with respect to the target dates. Note that boththe BookedRooms DMV and the FreeRooms DMV may be updatednear-instantaneously as soon as a change is made to the underlyingBookings table in the depicted embodiment.

Example Programmatic Interactions

FIG. 11 and FIG. 12 illustrate example programmatic interactions betweenclients and a sheets based data management service, according to atleast some embodiments. As mentioned earlier, a sheets-based datamanagement service (SDMS) 1191 similar to SDMS 120 of FIG. 1 mayimplement a set of programmatic interfaces 1177 that can be used byclients to submit various types of requests pertaining to theconfiguration and use of logical tables, row link records anddynamically materialized views (DMVs). Such programmatic interfaces may,for example, include a set of application programming interfaces (APIs),command-line tools, web-based consoles or tools, graphical userinterfaces (e.g., interfaces similar to those of other spreadsheettools), audio interfaces and so on in different embodiments. In variousembodiments, the kinds of programmatic requests shown in FIG. 11 andFIG. 12 may be utilized from within application authoring tools (similarto tools discussed below in the context of FIG. 14 ) to generate variouskinds of data sheets based applications.

Using interfaces 1177, a client 1101 may submit a CreateTable request1105 in the depicted embodiment, designating a set of one or more rowsand one or more columns within one or more data sheets as a logicaltable that is to be treated as a unit for certain types of operations.In response, the SDMS 1191 may generate and store metadata pertaining tothe table, included for example a unique table identifier Table-ID,formatting information, table member cell coordinates, table columnidentifiers or name, etc. In at least some embodiments, corresponding toindividual rows of the table, a respective row link record comprising animmutable row identifier (similar to the row link records indicated inFIG. 2 ) may be generated and stored at the SDMS. To store indicationsof relationships or bindings between another cell (in the same datasheet as the table that was just created, or in another data sheet) anda given row of the created table, the immutable row identifier of therow may be used as a pointer. As mentioned earlier, the row identifiermay be termed immutable in various embodiments because it remainsunchanged regardless of the changes in structure of the table containingthe row for which the row link record is generated. In some embodiments,additional metadata such as a display specification for the row, and/oruser defined names for the row may optionally be stored in the row linkrecord. Display specifications and/or user defined names may beindicated after the row link record is stored in some embodiments—thatis, at the time that a table creation request is submitted, an SDMSclient need not necessarily specify the display specification or userdefined name for the table's rows. The table identifier 1107 may bereturned in response to the CreateTable request 1105 in someembodiments.

In at least some embodiments, an authorized client 1101 may request allthe row identifiers of a specified table using a GetRowIDs request, andthe SDMS 1191 may provide a list of row identifiers of the specifiedtable in a Row-IDs response 1111. Note that at least in someembodiments, row identifiers may be stored as 64-bit or 128-bitnumerical values, or as strings or character arrays that may not beinterpretable by SDMS users, so the raw row identifiers themselves maybe useful primarily for debugging and similar administrative tasks. Insome embodiments, when a client 1101 requests a row identifier via agraphical interface, the display specification of the corresponding rowmay be used to determine the data (e.g., values of one or more columnsof the row) that is displayed—that is, the internal representation ofthe row identifier may not necessarily be displayed. In someembodiments, a GetRowData request 1113 may be supported to enable aclient 1101 to view all the content (e.g., values stored in all thecells of the row, including potentially other row identifiers) of agiven row, and the content may be provided in a RowData response 1115.

A FindRow request 1117 may be submitted by a client 1101 to obtain a rowidentifier of a row within a source table or dynamically materializedview (indicated by the SourceTableOrDMV parameter) that satisfies aspecified query (indicated by the Query parameter) in the depictedembodiment. Such FindRow( ) functions may be used to populate columns ofone table with links to rows of other related tables, as shown in thecontext of FIG. 2 . In response to a FindRow( ) request, in someembodiments the identifier of the first row that satisfies the query inthe specified source object (table or DMV) may be provided in theFirst-Found-Row-ID response 1119. If multiple rows satisfy the query,the decision as to how to select the particular row whose identifier isto be returned in response to a FindRow( ) request may be made at theSDMS in some embodiments based on a row-ordering rule or setting—e.g.,the topmost matching row may be selected in some embodiments. In atleast one embodiment a client may submit a programmatic request tomodify the row-ordering rule for a given table or DMV, and the modifiedversion of the rule (e.g., a sorting criterion for the rows) may be usedto select the particular row. If a client wishes to obtain identifiersof all the rows that match a query, a FindAllRows request 1121 may besubmitted in one embodiment, and the SDMS 1191 may provide a list of allthe row identifiers in a Row-ID-List response 1123.

As discussed earlier, in some embodiments a self-reference functionThisRow 1125 may be supported by an SDMS 1191. In response to a ThisRowrequest, in various embodiments the SDMS may determine the context fromwhich the request is generated, such as a particular row within alogical table or an expanded representation of a DMV, and provide a rowidentifier of the particular row in the This-Row-ID response 1127.

In some embodiments, a DeleteTable request 1129 may be submitted by aclient to delete the metadata (and data) associated with a table,including the table identifier, table-level metadata as well as row linkrecords of the table. A TableAndRowLinksDeleted response 1131 may beprovided in response, indicating that the table and its associated rowlink records have been removed from the repositories of the SDMS. In atleast one embodiment, if a client requests the deletion of a table T1whose row links are in use from some other cells outside T1, or from adata sheets based application, the SDMS may reject the deletion requestand/or indicate in an error message that a currently-being-referencedtable cannot be deleted until all references to the table are alsodeleted. In some embodiments, a request to delete a given row of a tablemay also be treated similarly with respect to potentially un-resolvablereferences. For example the SDMS 1191 may keep track of references tothe row (via its row identifier), and generate an error messageindicating that a row which is currently being referenced from elsewherecannot be removed or deleted. In other embodiments, deletions of tablesand/or rows may be permitted regardless of potential references to thetables and/or rows, and the problem of resolving references to the rowsthat may no longer work may be left to application designers/authors orother users of the data sheets. For example, in one implementation, if acell C1 includes a reference to R1 via R1's row identifier, and R1 isdeleted in response to client request (e.g., a DeleteTable request or arequest to delete R1), an error message indicating an unresolvablereference may be shown in the display of cell C1.

A CreateDMV request 1209 may be submitted by a client 1101 to an SDMS1191, as shown in FIG. 12 , to request that a new dynamicallymaterialized view (DMV) be created on a source data set (e.g., a sourcetable or another DMV, indicated by the SourceTableOrDMV parameter). TheQuery parameter of the CreateDMV request may indicate thepredicates/clauses that are to be satisfied by rows of the source dataset to be included in the DMV. In response, the SDMS may generate andstore a DMV descriptor (similar to the descriptor 360 shown in FIG. 3 ),comprising a DMV identifier, the query, the current results of executingthe query, etc. In some embodiments a DMV identifier 1211 may bereturned to the client on whose behalf the DMV is created. In someembodiments a Filter function (similar to the Filter functions discussedearlier in the context of FIG. 6 , FIG. 7 and FIG. 10 ) may be usedinstead of a CreateDMV request; as such, similar tasks may be performedat the SDMS in response to an invocation of a Filter function and inresponse to a CreateDMV request. In at least one embodiment in which aFilter function is entered as part of a formula of a data sheet cell, asummarized representation of the DMV may be displayed in that cell,e.g., including a graphical filter symbol and a dynamically updatedproperty of the results of executing the query defined for the filter. Adisplay specification of a DMV and/or a user-defined name for the DMVmay be submitted as part of the CreateDMV request, or in a separateModifyDMV request submitted after the DMV is created in variousembodiments.

According to some embodiments, a client 1101 may submit a DescribeDMVrequest 1213 to obtain information about a previously-created DMV(identified by the DMV-ID parameter), such as the query of the DMV, thedisplay specification of the query, etc. Information about the specifiedDMV may be provided to the requesting client 1101 via a DMVInfo response1215.

A ModifyDMV request 1217 may be submitted by a client to change one ormore properties of a previously-created DMV, including for example thesource table or source DMV, the query predicates/clauses, the displayspecification to be used for a summary representation or an expandedrepresentation of the DMV, the user-defined name, and so on. Aftermaking the requested changes, the SDMS 1191 may transmit a ModsCompleteresponse 1219 in some embodiments.

In some embodiments, an EvaluateDMV request 1221 may be submitted viainterfaces 1177 to obtain the result of the DMV's query. In response, arepresentation of the result of executing the query may be provided in aDMVResult message 1223 by the SDMS. Note that in embodiments in whichthe result of executing the query is automatically re-generated andstored whenever the source table or DMV changes, the query need notnecessarily be re-executed in response to an EvaluateDMV request1221—instead, the already computed results may be provided from thedescriptor or repository where they were stored in response to the mostrecent change to the underlying data. In some embodiments, as mentionedearlier, a client may indicate that results of a DMV query should not bere-generated automatically when the contents of the source object(s) ofthe DMV change, and that such evaluations should be deferred until a“refresh” request is received at the SDMS. In such a scenario, theEvaluateDMV request 1221 may serve as a refresh request.

A DeleteDMV request 1225 may be submitted to an SDMS to request that aDMV specified via the DMV-ID parameter be deleted from the SDMSrepository or repositories. After the DMV's descriptor is deleted, aDMVDeleted response 1227 may be transmitted to the client 1101 in thedepicted embodiment.

In some embodiments, the SDMS may support a FindDefinedDMVs request1233, which may be used by an SDMS client 1101 to identify all the DMVs(if any) that have been defined with respect to a logical table or DMVindicated by the SourceTableOrDMV parameter. In response, a list ofidentifiers of the DMVs that have created on the source object may beprovided in a DMV-ID-List response 1235. In one embodiment, a“recursive” parameter of the FindDefinedDMVs request may be set to trueto obtain not just the list of DMVs defined on the source object itself,but also any DMVs defined on such DMVs, and so on. In one scenario, forexample, on a given table T1, two DMVs DMV1 and DMV2 may have beendefined, and another DMV DMV3 may have been defined on DMV2. In such ascenario, if a FindDefinedDMVs request indicates T1 as the sourceobject, and the recursive parameter is set to FALSE, only theidentifiers of DMV1 and DMV2 may be provided. However, if T1 isindicated as the source object and the recursive parameter is set toTRUE, identifiers of DMV1, DMV2 and DMV3 may be included in theDMV-ID-List. Continuing the example, if DMV2 is indicated in theSourceTableOrDMV parameter, the DMV-ID-List may only include DMV3.

In some embodiments, as discussed in the context of FIG. 10 , an SDMSmay support the ability to define DMVs based on the presence of a row inone source data set, and the concurrent absence of that row in anothersource data set, e.g., without requiring locks or other conventionalconcurrency control mechanisms to be used. A CreatePresenceAndAbsenceDMVrequest 1237 may be used for creating such DMVs, with the PresenceSourceparameter indicating a source object in which a row is to be present forinclusion in the DMV results, and the AbsenceSource parameter indicatinganother source object in which the row is to be absent for inclusion inthe DMV results. After such a DMV is created and a correspondingdescriptor is stored, a DMV-ID 1239 of the newly-created DMV may beprovided to the client 1101 in some embodiments. Note that in someembodiments, the query stored for such a DMV may be expressed using asyntax similar to “IN <PresenceSource> AND NOT IN <AbsenceSource>”.Similar programmatic requests to create DMVS representing theintersection of two source data sets (and/or the union of two sourcedata sets) may be supported in one embodiment.

Other types of programmatic interactions than those illustrated by wayof example in FIG. 11 and FIG. 12 may be supported at an SDMS foroperations associated with row link records and DMVs in someembodiments. Some of the types of requests shown in FIG. 11 or FIG. 12may not be supported in other embodiments. As suggested by the requestsin which one of the parameters is a source table or a DMV, a DMV may betreated in various embodiments analogously to a logical table. Note thatin addition to the types of programmatic interactions discussed in thecontext of FIG. 11 and FIG. 12 , in which a client may submit a requestand receive a corresponding response, in various embodiments the SDMSmay itself transmit notifications to clients under certain conditions.As discussed earlier, in various embodiments an SDMS may automaticallynotify at least some clients when membership of a DMV changes, or whenthe order in which the results of a DMV are to be arranged/displayedchanges. Such notifications may indicate to the clients that theirsheets-based data is out of date, and that a refresh/resynchronizationoperation may be required.

Example Multi-Service Application Authoring Environment

FIG. 13 illustrates an example system environment in which anexpressions management service, a sheets based data management serviceand an application authoring service may be used collectively to developapplications for a variety of execution platforms, according to at leastsome embodiments. As shown, system 1300 may include resources andartifacts of an expressions management service (EMS) 1340, asheets-based data management service (SDMS) 1330, and an applicationauthoring service (AAS) 1320 in the depicted embodiment. The SDMS 1330may provide support for row link records and dynamically materializedviews (DMVs) of the kind introduced above, as well as various otherfeatures of a web-of-sheets data model similar to the automaticallygenerated hierarchies of data sheets discussed in the context of FIG. 1. The AAS 1320 may provide easy-to-use (e.g., graphical) programmaticinterfaces and tools for developing applications whose data sets arestored in the SDMS and accessed via expressions referenced in theapplications. Individual data sheets based applications authored usingthe AAS 1320 may be modeled as a collection of cards, with each cardrepresenting a layout of a screen of an application execution platformsuch as a mobile phone, tablet or laptop, for example. The EMS 1340 mayallow users such as application authors to define and store,independently of the data sheets themselves, expressions that referencecontents of cells of the data sheets in various embodiments, and to usesuch expressions to perform both reads and writes with respect to theunderlying data sheets within the applications. In effect, an expressionmay be considered a cell that is not itself bound to a data sheet, butcan refer to cells of one or more data sheets (e.g., via row links, DMVsand the like, accessed using logical equivalents or variants of theFindRow and Filter functions discussed earlier). Whenever the underlyingsheets-based data that is referenced from an application (e.g., via anexpression) changes, the SDMS may send notifications to instances of theapplications. An indication of the change (e.g., an icon indicatingpotentially stale data, or a font or color change indicating potentiallystale data) may be provided to application users in some embodiments assoon as the notification is received, and the user may refresh theapplication data if desired. In some embodiments, applicationconfiguration settings may be used to auto-refresh the application inresponse to such notifications (e.g., without requiring users to issuerefresh commands). Several different attributes of a given expressionmay be stored at an EMS in some embodiments, including for example aformula and a formatting specification for a result of evaluating theformula. From within the applications, expressions may be referencedusing unique identifiers in at least some embodiments; as a result,coordinates of the underlying data sheet cells may not be stored withinthe applications themselves.

At least two categories of clients may utilize the combination ofnetwork-accessible services 1320, 1330 and 1340 in the depictedembodiment, using a set of programmatic interfaces 1344: applicationauthors or developers, and application end-users. Application authorsmay utilize authoring interfaces such as application editor/viewer 1366running at authoring platforms 1371 (such as laptops, desktops, mobiledevices or the like) to generate and store card-based applications inthe depicted embodiment. A given card may correspond to one or morescreen layouts of the flow of an application in some embodiments, withthe application represented as a collection of cards corresponding tosuccessive layouts that may be encountered by an application user as theuser interacts with the application. Various subcomponents or elementsof a given card or layout may be bound to respective expressions (ormultiple expressions) in the depicted embodiment. Individual expressionsmay in turn comprise a formula that refers to one or more cells of oneor more data sheets of the SDMS, e.g., either directly (by providingcoordinates of the referenced cells) or using row link records' rowidentifiers, DMVs or the like. As part of the process of authoring anapplication to be managed using AAS 120, an application author mayprovide input specifying an expression to be used within one or morecards of an application (e.g., an expression to determine a value to bedisplayed in a text or numeric field of a user interface of theapplication). The expression may refer to one or more cells within oneor more data sheets stored in the SDMS 1330, and a persistent record ofthe expression (including for example the formula to be used to evaluatethe expression) and associated metadata may be stored in the EMS 1340,e.g., in an express definition repository 1356 and/or an expressionmetadata repository 1358 in some embodiments. Note that the contents ofthe data sheets, whose cells may be referenced in the expressions, maybe stored on sheet contents repository 1352, separately from theexpression definitions and expressions metadata repository in thedepicted embodiment.

As such, expressions may be treated as first class objects, with aseparate set of programmatic interfaces supported for creating, reading,evaluating, updating and deleting expressions than the interfaces usedfor the corresponding operations on the data sheets. Metadata pertainingto row links, DMVs, data sheet ownership, permissions and/or other sheetproperties may be stored in a sheet metadata repository 1354 of the SDMS1330 in some embodiments.

The card management subsystem 1325 may enable applications to bedeveloped or authored for a plurality of supported target deploymentplatforms 1372, such as various combinations of hardware and operatingsystems used for mobile phones, tablet computing devices, wearablecomputing devices and the like in the depicted embodiment. Cardscorresponding to respective sets of one or more screen layouts ofvarious application workflows may be constructed from a variety oflayout items of supported item types 1374 using simple“what-you-see-is-what-you-get” or WYSIWYG application authoring tools orinterfaces (such as application editor/viewer 1366) in variousembodiments. Persistent versions of the cards may be stored in a markuplanguage defined in a specification 1376 in at least some embodiments,and transmitted to various authoring devices for local caching asneeded. Persistent representations or descriptors of the applications,which include references to expressions stored in the EMS, may be storedin a repository 1327 of the AAS in the depicted embodiment. Applicationmetadata, such as the identities of application owners, applicationcreation logs, application authoring permissions, application executionpermissions, and the like, may be stored in a separate repository 1328in some embodiments.

A variety of programmatic interfaces 1344 may be implemented by the AAS1320, the SDMS 1330 and/or the EMS 1340 in the depicted embodiment,including for example respective sets of application programminginterfaces (APIs), web-based consoles, graphical user interfaces,command-line tools and the like. Via such interfaces, an indication thata data sheet is to be used to store at least a portion of a data setaccessed from an application being developed may be obtained in variousembodiments at one or more of the services. A persistent representationof a cell-based expression (e.g., comprising a reference to a rowidentifier stored in a row link record of the kind discussed above,and/or a reference to a DMV of the kind discussed above) indicated atleast in part by input obtained via an application authoring interfacemay be stored in the expressions definition repository 1356. Thepersistent representation may comprise a unique identifier assigned tothe cell-based expression, and the expression itself may refer to one ormore cells of one or more sheets stored in the SDMS, to features such asrow links, DMVs and the like, and/or to mathematical/statisticalfunctions (such as SUM, AVERAGE and other aggregation functions)supported for cell-based data at the SDMS.

A version of the application may be deployed to one or more executionplatforms (such as platforms 1361A or 1361B). In the deployed version,at least one screen layout may be configured to display a value based atleast in part on evaluating the expression. The version of theapplication may use the unique identifier to refer to the expression inat least some embodiments, and may not indicate the coordinates of thedata sheet cells that are referenced in the expression. If/when thecells are modified, e.g., by a write operation directed to the datasheet in which the cells are included, the contents of the cells may beupdated/modified without re-evaluating the expression itself in someembodiments; this approach may be referred to as deferred evaluation ofthe expression. Deferring evaluation of expressions until theevaluations are needed for a running instance of an application may saveconsiderable processing resources in various embodiments, especially inscenarios where the underlying data sets of applications are changedfrequently. Note that in some embodiments, if an expression's formulareferences a row identifier or a DMV, and the underlying data sheetcontents are changed, the application may be notified regarding thechanges. If and when the application issues a refresh request inresponse to the notification, the expression may be re-evaluated. Inother embodiments, the expressions may be automatically re-evaluatedwhen the underlying data set is changed.

When an application end user issues a request to run an instance of adeployed app (e.g., 1365A or 1365B) at an execution platform 1361, thelayouts corresponding to one or more cards of the application may bedisplayed, e.g., in the order indicated in the application descriptorstored in repository 1327. In response to obtaining an end-user'srequest to view a layout that requires evaluation of a previously-storedexpression in a running instance of the application, the expression maybe re-evaluated (if needed) using the modified contents of cell(s) by anexpression evaluation manager 1359, and a result of the re-evaluationmay be used to populate the layout.

In some embodiments, a different approach may be taken with respect toorganizing the operations associated with applications that useexpressions to refer to contents of data sheets than that shown in FIG.13 . For example, in one embodiment, the described functionality of theapplication authoring and deployment service 1320 may be combined withthe described functionality of the expressions management service 1340into a single network-accessible service, the AAS and the SDMS may becombined into a single service, or all three services (the AAS, the SDMSand the EMS) may be implemented as a single service. Individual ones ofthe components of various ones of the services shown in FIG. 13 may beimplemented using one or more computing devices in various embodiments.In at least one embodiment, separate repositories may not be used forstoring object contents and metadata at a given service—for example,sheet contents and sheet metadata may be stored at a single repository,expression definitions and expressions metadata may be stored at asingle repository, and/or application descriptors and applicationmetadata may be stored at a single repository.

Example Application Authoring Interface

FIG. 14 illustrates an example interface of an application authoringtool that may be used to develop applications that utilize row linkrecords and/or dynamically materialized views of a sheets based datamanagement service, according to at least some embodiments. The exampleinterface 1470 may be presented to an application author during asession of interaction, e.g., from a desktop-based front-end authoringtool, with a mobile application authoring and deployment service in thedepicted embodiment. The presented information may be distributed amongat least five regions in the depicted embodiment: a card collectionoverview display region 1413, a current card detail region 1415, a sheetcollection overview region 1470, a current sheet detail region 1440, andone or more toolbar regions 1430.

In region 1413, icons 14710 (e.g., 1410A, 1410B, and 1410C) representingat least a subset of the collection of cards that have been created fora mobile application which is being developed or tested may be shown inthe depicted embodiment. Individual ones of the cards may representrespective layouts displayed on a mobile phone, tablet or laptop screenduring the running of an instance of the application. Arrows linking thecard icons may, for example, show the flow of interactions experiencedby an end user—e.g., a click on a layout item of card 1410A by anapplication user may lead to a rendering of the layout of card 1410B,and a click on a layout item of card 1410B may lead to a rendering ofthe layout of card 1410C in the depicted example. At any given point intime, details of one or more of the card collections may be shown inexpanded view region 1415, and the card(s) whose details are beingdisplayed may be indicated using highlighting, a special color/font orsome other indicator 1412 in the card collection overview region in someembodiments.

Within the current card details region 1415, various layout elements1420, such as 1420A-1420E, may be arranged and re-arranged as desired bythe application author during the course of an editing session. Somelayout items, such as 1420A, may comprise expression or text entryelements 1421 into which the application author may enter a formulaand/or other properties of an expression which is utilized atapplication runtime to populate the layout item and/or to perform anoperation based on input entered into the layout item by an end user.The entered formula may include, for example, a Filter function of thekind discussed earlier to define and/or access the results of a DMV, aFindRow function of the kind discussed earlier to access a row of alogical table, and/or other functions related to row links or DMVs invarious embodiments. In at least some embodiments, element 1421 may bebound to a dynamically changing list representing a DMV (e.g., enablingthe application user to scroll up or down among the result rows of aDMV). As soon as the underlying data of such a DMV changes, the SDMS maynotify client devices at which the application instance runs, indicatingthat the application data at the client device may have become out ofdate in various embodiments. A user may then submit a request to refreshthe out-of-date data if desired. In some embodiments, applicationinstances may be configured to auto-refresh their data, e.g., bysubmitting requests to the SDMS periodically or if a timeout has expiredsince the source data change notification was received at a clientdevice. In some embodiments, card-based applications may have aconfiguration option that, if set, results in immediate refreshes of theapplication data when the underlying data at the SDMS changes.

A variety of layout item types may be supported in differentembodiments, such as rich text elements or containers,repeaters/iterators, calendar entries, charts/images, forms which may beused for data/formula entry, maps, contact entries, video clips and thelike. Icons 1452 (or tabs or other symbols), such as 1452A-1452C,representing individual data sheets whose contents may be referenceddirectly or via expressions in the application may be shown in sheetscollection overview region 1472 of interface 1470 in the depictedembodiment. Details of a currently-viewed or currently-edited data sheet(for which a visual indicator 1454 such as a highlight, a contrastingcolor or font may be used) may be provided in region 1440 in thedepicted embodiment. The toolbar region 1430 may comprise a collectionof tools which can be used by the application author to arrange and/orformat the contents of the other regions in the depictedembodiment—e.g., tools may be used to add/modify/remove cards,add/modify/remove sheets, add/modify/remove layout elements, and thelike in various embodiments. By including one or more sheets (e.g.,selected from a collection of sheets of a data management service) inregion 1472 and/or 1440, an application author may indicate that theapplication being authored relies on a data set stored in the sheets inthe depicted embodiment; and by entering a formula that refers to cellsof the sheets using the expression entry element 1421, the applicationauthor may indicate the relationship between the application, the sheetsbased data set of the application and an independently storedexpression. As such, the three types of services indicated in FIG. 13—the expressions management service, the sheets based data managementservice, and the application authoring service—may all be utilizedjointly using interface 1470 in the depicted embodiment.

The positions, sizes, fonts, colors, and other properties of layoutitems 1420, including their associations with data sheets of the sheetcollection and/or associated expressions, may be modified using simplepoint-and-click and/or drag-and-drop interface elements in variousembodiments, considerably simplifying the development of the mobileapplication. In at least some embodiments, no source code may have to beentered by an application developer in order to create a fairlysophisticated application. In at least one embodiment, in addition tousing straightforward graphical interactions, application authors mayprovide source code for some features of their applications ifdesired—for example, a tool of toolbar region 1430 may provide a sourcecode editor, or may allow source code files to be uploaded byapplication authors. Expressions may be referenced in such source code,e.g., via their unique identifiers in various embodiments. In someembodiments, several different connectivity modes may be supported forapplication authoring—e.g., an online mode (in which updates entered viathe application authoring interface are synchronously stored at arepository of the application authoring and deployment service), and anoffline mode (in which updates entered via the interface are only savedto a local device that is not currently connected to the applicationauthoring and deployment service, and synchronization with the serviceis deferred) may be supported. The current connectivity mode of theauthoring tool may be displayed using a portion of interface 1470 in atleast some embodiments. In various embodiments, the synchronizationstatus of the local version of the application (e.g., whether the localversion of the application's artifacts are synchronized with a masterversion stored in a repository of the application authoring/deploymentservice) may also be indicated.

Example Provider Network Environment

In some embodiments a sheets based data management service may beimplemented as part of a provider network. FIG. 15 illustrates anexample provider network environment in which a sheets based datamanagement service may be implemented, according to at least someembodiments. Networks set up by an entity such as a company or a publicsector organization to provide one or more network-accessible services(such as various types of cloud-based computing, storage or analyticsservices) accessible via the Internet and/or other networks to adistributed set of clients may be termed provider networks in one ormore embodiments. A provider network may sometimes be referred to as a“public cloud” environment. The resources of a provider network, or evena given service of a provider network, may in some cases be distributedacross multiple data centers, which in turn may be distributed amongnumerous geographical regions (e.g., with each region corresponding toone or more cities, states or countries).

In the depicted embodiment, provider network 1501 may comprise resourcesused to implement a plurality of services, including for example avirtualized computing service 1503, a storage service 1523, anapplication authoring service 1585, a sheets-based data managementservice 1543, a workflow automation service 1537, and an expressionsmanagement service 1571. Each of the services may include a respectiveset of computing devices and/or other resources in some embodiments.Components of a given service may utilize components of other servicesin the depicted embodiment—e.g., computing platforms 1505 (such as1505A-1505D) of the virtualized computing service 1503 and/or storageservers 1525 (e.g., 1525A—1525D) of the storage service may be employedby various other services of provider network 1501. Individual ones ofthe services shown in FIG. 15 may implement a respective set ofprogrammatic interfaces 1577 which can be used by external and/orinternal clients (where the internal clients may comprise components ofother services) in the depicted embodiment. In some embodiments, thesheets-based data management service 1543, the application authoringservice 1585, and/or the expressions management service 1571 may beimplemented as respective subsystems of a combined higher-level service.

The sheets-based data management service 1543 may comprise, among othercomponents, one or more request handlers 1545, sheet contents 1548 and acollection of metadata 1547 (including DMV descriptors, row link recordsand the like) in the depicted embodiment. The request handlers 1545 mayrespond to client-submitted requests, e.g., from the applicationauthoring service 1585, the expressions management service 1571 or fromother clients, enabling the clients to create, populate, read, modifyand delete various types of data sheets and data sheet contents,including sheets arranged in hierarchies and sheets comprising rowlinks, DMVs and the like. The expressions management service 1571 maycomprise a set of expression creation and editing resources 1576 as wellas a set of expression evaluation resources 1578 in the depictedembodiment. Resources 1576 may be used to generate and store expressiondefinition records and associated metadata, for example, while resources1578 may be used to evaluate expressions (e.g., on demand, when requiredby running application instances as discussed earlier). As shown, theapplication authoring service 1585 may comprise one or more developmentcoordinators 1587 and one or more deployment coordinators 1589 in thedepicted embodiment. The development coordinators 1587 may beresponsible for enabling the design and authoring of data sheets basedapplications using interfaces similar to the application authoringinterfaces described above, while the deployment coordinators 1589 maybe responsible for transmitting applications post-development totargeted mobile devices, loading and pre-fetching the appropriatesubsets of data to the devices, and so on in various embodiments.

In some embodiments, a workflow automation service 1537 may also utilizethe sheets based data management service 1543 and/or the expressionsmanagement service 1571. Workflows for automating various tasks of anorganization may be generated and stored with the help of workflowdevelopment coordinators 1538, and decisions regarding the particularoperations to be performed next may be made at various stages ofindividual workflows based on the results of evaluating sheets basedexpressions stored at the service 1571, or formulas of cells stored insheets-based data management service 1543. Workflow executioncoordinators 1549 may for example utilize expression evaluationresources 1578 to obtain such results in various embodiments. In someembodiments, a change log and a timer service may be used to enableworkflows; e.g., workflows may depend on events from the change log orthe timer service. Such changes may be at the data sheet cell level, orat the DMV level in various embodiments.

The storage service 1523 and/or the VCS 1503 may each provide highlevels of availability, data durability, and failure resilience,enabling workloads associated with numerous concurrent sets ofapplication authoring projects and workflow related projects thatutilize data-sheet of the kind discussed earlier to be handled invarious embodiments. In at least some embodiments, the applicationsdeveloped at the service 1585 may be used to invoke processes oroperations from other services—e.g., when an end user interacts with aparticular layout element of an application, a service request may betransmitted to one or more other services of the provider network. Inone embodiment, in response to determining that a particular cell of asheet associated with an application has been updated from anapplication execution platform, a process may be instantiated, updatedor terminated at a provider network service other than the applicationauthoring and deployment service itself.

In at least one embodiment, at least some of the techniques discussedabove for authoring and deploying applications based on usingexpressions and/or a web-of-sheets data model that supports DMVs and rowlink records may be accomplished using non-specialized computingplatforms (e.g., virtual machines) of the virtualized computing service1503. In some embodiments, the techniques for creating and manipulatingdata sheets, expressions and/or authoring applications may beimplemented without acquiring resources of network-accessible servicessuch as those shown in FIG. 15 . For example, a standalone set of toolsimplemented at one or more computing devices which are not part of anetwork-accessible service may be used in some embodiments.

Methods for Generating and Using Row Links and Dynamically MaterializedViews

FIG. 16 is a flow diagram illustrating aspects of operations that may beperformed to implement and utilize row link records at a sheets baseddata management service, according to at least some embodiments. Asshown in element 1601, at least a portion of an initial data set of anapplication App1 may be stored at a data sheet DS1 managed at the sheetsbased data management service (SDMS) in the depicted embodiment. App1may be designed for deployment to any of a variety of executionplatforms, including for example mobile devices such as phones, tabletcomputing devices, laptops and the like, with the screens of suchdevices serving as one of the interfaces used to display output of App1and/or receive input for App1. In some embodiments, App1 may be deployedto a platform whose user interfaces may include augmented reality orvirtual reality interfaces, an audio interface similar to that ofautomated personal assistants, gesture-recognition interfaces or thelike. The SDMS may receive an indication that App1's data set is to bestored at DS1 via a cards-based application authoring tool similar tothat described above in the context of FIG. 14 in some embodiments.

As shown in element 1604 of FIG. 6 , an indication may be received atthe SDMS (e.g., via a graphical UI interaction or other programmaticinteraction) that a set of cells of DS1, comprising some number of rowsand columns, is to be grouped/designated as a logical table T1 in thedepicted embodiment. For example, an SDMS client may select a number ofrows and columns within DS1 using a mouse or similar interface, and thenclick on an interface element labeled “Create Table” in one embodiment.Alternatively, the client may submit a programmatic request indicatingthe coordinates of the cells that are to be included in the table (e.g.,a request of the form “CreateTable[row5:row10][column17:column25]” maybe submitted to indicate that a logical table with 6 rows and 9 columnsis to be created.

In at least some embodiments, the SDMS may automatically generate andstore respective row link records for each of the rows of T1, e.g., inresponse to the request to create T1 (element 1607). Each row linkrecord may comprise a respective immutable identifier for the row insome embodiments. The row indicated by a row link record or identifiermay be referred to as the source row of the row link record in someembodiments. The structure and format of the unique identifier may varyin different embodiments—e.g., a 128-bit integer, a 32-character string,or some such data element may be used. The identifier selected for a rowmay be independent of the contents of the row and the cell coordinatesof the row in at least some embodiments—that is, it may not be possibleto determine the location of the row by analyzing the identifier, and itmay not be possible to determine the contents of the row by analyzingthe identifier. A given row identifier may be unique, at least withinthe workspace to which DS1 belongs in some embodiments—that is, all therow identifiers generated for all the tables within the workspace may bedifferent from each other. Once assigned to a given row of a givensource table such as T1, a row identifier may remain unchanged, even ifthe source table structure is modified (e.g., if one or more new rowsare added, or one or more new columns are added, the already-generatedrow identifiers may not be changed). In at least some embodiments, whena logical table such as T1 is created, some of its rows may be empty(i.e., the cells of the rows may contain no data); row identifiers maynevertheless be automatically generated for the empty rows. If/when anew row is added to T1, a new row link record with a newly-generated rowidentifier may be stored. In various embodiments, the row identifiersmay serve as links or pointers to the corresponding table rows,analogous in some ways to HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) links thatcan be used to access respective web pages or portions of web pages. Inone embodiment, when requesting the creation of a logical table such asT1, an SDMS client may be given the option of deciding whether row linkrecords are to be automatically generated and stored, or not. If, forexample, the client decides that a given logical table is not going tobe referenced from an application such as App1 or from any cells in theworkspace, the client may decide that row link records need not becreated and stored, thereby reducing the resource usage of the SDMS.

Optionally, other attributes/properties may be stored in row linkrecords in some embodiments (element 1607). Such attributes may include,for example, a display specification for a source row, indicating whichcolumns are to be displayed from referencing cells (cells that refer tothe source row using the identifier stored in the row link record), andhow the values in the selected columns are to be formatted. In someembodiments, a row of T1 may be referred to or referenced from anothercell or application (e.g., for sorting or comparing rows) using a stringrepresentation of the row that was generated based on the displaysettings for the row. In some embodiments, deferral settings for thesource row may be stored in a row link record. A deferral settingassociated with a row link or identifier may be specified via aprogrammatic interface by an SDMS client may, for example be used toindicate that updates directed to the source row should not bepropagated immediately to referencing cells. Instead, the deferralsetting may indicate that a notification is to be directed to thereferencing cell and/or one or more other destinations, in effectinforming an SDMS client or application that the contents of thereferencing cell are out-of-date or stale. In response to such anotification, in at least some embodiments a refresh request may besubmitted for the referencing cell. The contents of the referencing cellor application may be updated in response to such a refresh request insome embodiments. In various embodiments, row collections of rowidentifiers generated for respective rows of T1 that meet a specifiedcriterion may be stored in DMV (dynamically materialized view)descriptors as indicated earlier.

A number of interfaces or interface elements may be implemented at theSDMS to enable clients to utilize row identifiers to refer to thecorresponding source rows, e.g., to indicate relationships betweendifferent logical tables. For example, in some embodiments, a pick listcomponent of a graphical user interface (similar to the pick list shownin FIG. 6 ) may be used to populate cells in a second logical table T2(or anywhere in the data sheets of the workspace in which DS1 wascreated) with row identifiers of T1. The row identifier of a particularrow R1 in T1 may, for example, be included in an internal SDMS recordstored to indicate contents of the referencing cell C1 in T2 in someimplementations. When selecting a pick list as the mechanism to be usedto populate a cell, an SDMS client may be able to indicate the name of asource table of the workspace (or an identifier of a source DMV that wascreated earlier in the workspace) in at least some embodiments. Theoptions presented via the picklist may comprise all the rows of thespecified source table or DMV, with each row being displayed within thepicklist based on the display settings of the corresponding row linkrecord. Other ways to obtain a row identifier to indicate a relationshipbetween a referencing cell and a source row may include functions suchas FindRow( ) in some embodiments, to which a query indicating acriterion for selecting the source row may be provided as input to thefunction as discussed earlier. FindRow( ) or similar functions may beused to populate not just referencing cells within data sheets, but alsoto populate components of App1, which result in the display of sourcerow column values via App1's user interface. As such, data sheet cellsand application components may both represent examples of target dataelements whose contents can be determined using row identifiers storedat the SDMS and identified via FindRow( ) or similar interfaces in someembodiments. In one example use of a picklist with respect to a DMV anda card-based application, consider a scenario in which users areassociated with projects, the user-project associations are indicated byrows in a User_Projects logical table with [User] and [Project] columns,each project comprises several tasks that are indicated by rows of aTasks logical table with columns [Task] and [Project]. A user is lookingfor unassigned tasks to work on, and information about such assignmentsis stored in a table User_WorkItems with columns [User], [Task],[Status] and [Free Tasks]. Assume also that from a card of anapplication, a function can be executed to obtain the row identifier ofthe user (denoted by [User]). A pick list may be created on a DMV [FreeTasks] using syntax similar to [FreeTasks]=Filter(Tasks,“Tasks[Project]=%”, FindRow(User_Projects[User]=[User])). The pick list may allow a user of theapplication to only pick from among those Tasks that are associated withthe user's project.

The structure of the source logical table T1 may change (element 1613),e.g., due to the addition of one or more rows or columns, in thedepicted embodiment. As a result, cell coordinates of the cells of a rowR1 of T1 may change, but R1's row identifier may remain unchanged.If/when the contents of R1 are modified (e.g., based on user input, orbased on updates propagated from some other table or DMV) (element1619), the contents of referring cells such as C1 may be automaticallyupdated in at least some embodiments to reflect the update to R1,despite the change to T1's structure. In addition, in some embodiments,notifications may be transmitted to running instances of App1 indicatingthat R1 contents have changed; such notifications may result inautomated changes to the output presented by App1 in some cases. Forexample, in one embodiment the SDMS and/or the application authoringservice being used may maintain metadata which indicates all the clientdevices (at which the application instances may be running) to whichnotifications are to be sent, the specific mechanisms/protocols to beused to send the notifications, actions to be taken if a given clientdevice happens to be offline or unreachable at the time that the changesto the underlying data are detected, and so on, and such metadata may beemployed to manage the notifications.

FIG. 17 is a flow diagram illustrating aspects of operations that may beperformed to implement and utilize dynamically materialized views at asheets based data management service, according to at least someembodiments. As shown in element 1701, at least a portion of an initialdata set of an application App1 may be stored at a data sheet DS1managed at the sheets based data management service (SDMS) in thedepicted embodiment. App1 may be designed for deployment to any of avariety of execution platforms, including for example mobile devicessuch as phones, tablet computing devices, laptops and the like, with thescreens of such devices serving as one of the interfaces used to displayoutput of App1 and/or receive input for App1. In some embodiments, App1may be deployed to a platform whose user interfaces may includeaugmented reality or virtual reality interfaces, an audio interfacesimilar to that of automated personal assistants, gesture-recognitioninterfaces or the like. The SDMS may receive an indication that App1'sdata set is to be stored at DS1 via a cards-based application authoringtool similar to that described above in the context of FIG. 14 in someembodiments.

An indication may be received at the SDMS (e.g., via a graphical UIinteraction or other programmatic interaction) that a dynamicallymaterialized view (DMV) or filter is to be created on the contents of asource data set such as a logical table T1 defined within DS1 or someother sheet of the workspace (element 1704). For example, in someembodiments the use of any of several variants of a “Filter( )” functionwithin a formula for a cell may indicate that a DMV is to be created.Note that in at least one embodiment, wherever the SDMS permits alogical table to be used as an input to an operation or function (suchas a Filter( ) function), a DMV may alternatively be used as the input;that is, logical tables and DMVs may be treated as equivalent data typesin such embodiments. In some embodiments, a version of the Filter( )function may be used to compare the contents of two data sets, e.g., tofind rows that are in both source data sets, or to find rows that are inone source data set but not the other. For example, a filter query mayindicate (a) a presence criterion associated with a first source dataset (a logical table or DMV), and (b) an absence criterion associatedwith a second source data set (another logical table or DMV). A resultof executing such a filter query (stored in a DMV descriptorcorresponding to the query) may comprise a row identifier of at leastone row of cells that is (a) present in the first source data set and(b) absent from the second source data set. In various embodiments, DMVsmay be pipelined or chained with other DMVs—e.g., using a filtercreation syntax similar to “Filter(Filter(Filter(<source S1>,<queryQ1>),<query Q2>),<query Q3>)”, a 3-level DMV pipeline may be created.DMV creation requests may define queries that include aggregationfunctions (such as SUM, AVERAGE, etc.), in some embodiments. Similarly,the results of DMVs may also be aggregated within cell formulas, e.g.,using syntax similar to “=SUM[DMV1][Column2]”, the sum of the “Column2”values of all the rows in DMV1 may be obtained.

A descriptor or metadata record of the requested DMV may be generatedand stored in various embodiments (element 1707). The descriptor may,for example, comprise a filter query (which may be specifiedprogrammatically by the SDMS client on whose behalf the DMV is beingcreated) to be used to select rows from the source data set. The filterquery may comprise one or more predicates or clauses expressed in termsof the column names or column identifiers of the source data set.Optionally, the result of executing the filter query (e.g., a collectionof row identifiers of the rows selected when the query is run) may alsobe stored in the descriptor, as well as other attributes such as displayspecifications, DMV deferral settings, the coordinates of a cell inwhich a summary representation of the DMV is to be displayed, auser-defined name for the DMV, and the like. A display specificationmay, for example, indicate which property of the query result is to beincluded in a summary representation of the DMV, which symbol (such asthe funnel-like symbol shown in FIG. 3 ) is to be used to indicate thatthe DMV is summarized within a cell, and so on. A deferral setting maybe used by an SDMS client to indicate that, instead of immediatelyupdating an expanded representation or summary representation when thesource data set changes, such update propagation is to be deferred untila refresh request is received for the DMV. Instead of an immediatepropagation of the relevant updates, a notification indicating that theDMV query results have changed may be transmitted to one or moredestinations (e.g., target cells in which summary representations of theDMV are displayed, sheet regions in which expanded representations ofthe DMV are displayed, applications whose output is based on the DMV,and so on).

A summary representation of the DMV may be displayed in one or morecells of a data sheet (e.g., DS1, or another data sheet in DS1'sworkspace) in various embodiments (element 1710). Such a summaryrepresentation may comprise, for example, a graphical filter symbol anda dynamically updated property of the result of the filter query (e.g.,the cardinality of the result). Any of a variety of properties may beindicated in the summary representation in different embodiments. Forexample, instead of displaying just the cardinality of the result, anindication of the direction in which the cardinality is changing may beshown in one embodiment. If the cardinality of the DMV filter queryresult set increases from 4 to 8 as a result of an update to the sourcedata set, for example, the display in the summary representation mayindicate the tokens: “4→8”. In one embodiment, a cell of DS1 may bydefault be assigned to show the summary representation of a DMV as partof the process of creating the DMV via a graphical user interface—forexample, as soon as an SDMS client inserts the “Filter( )” functiondefining a DMV within the formula of a cell C1, that cell C1 may beassigned to display the summary representation. DMVs may be referencedusing any of a number of approaches in various embodiments, e.g., fromwithin applications such as App1 or from other cells of one or more datasheets. For example, if a user-defined name has been designated for aDMV, that user-defined name may be used to refer to the DMV in a targetcell. Alternatively, the coordinates of a cell comprising a summary ofthe DMV may be used to reference the DMV, or a string generated inaccordance with a display specification may be used.

Optionally, in some embodiments, one or more expanded representations ofthe DMV may be displayed, indicating contents of (or derived from) atleast some columns of the filter query result rows (element 1713). Suchexpanded representations may be displayed in regions of one or more datasheets selected by the client on whose behalf the DMV is created in someembodiments, and/or within layouts of card-based application such as maybe authored using interfaces of the kind shown in FIG. 14 .

Contents of the source data set (e.g., the logical table, or some otherDMV from whose results the current DMV rows are selected) of the DMV maybe modified in the depicted embodiment (element 1716), e.g., based oninput received from SDMS clients and/or updates propagated from someother data sheets or applications. In various embodiment, anycombination of several different types of actions may be initiated atthe SDMS in response to the update of the source data set. For example,as shown in element 1719, filter query results stored in the DMVdescriptor (if any) may be dynamically updated; displayed contents ofthe summary representation and any expanded representations may beautomatically updated; and/or a notification may be sent to an executionplatform, where the output of the application App1 may be changed basedon the updated results of the filter query. In scenarios in which theexpanded representation is sorted on the value of some column, themodified version of the expanded representation may be automaticallyre-sorted, resulting in the re-arrangement of various rows of theexpanded representation.

It is noted that in various embodiments, some of the operations shown inFIG. FIG. 16 or FIG. 17 may be implemented in a different order thanthat shown in the figure, or may be performed in parallel rather thansequentially. Additionally, some of the operations shown in FIG. 16 orFIG. 17 may not be required in one or more implementations.

Use Cases

The techniques described above, of automatically generating and storingimmutable row identifiers for logical tables defined within data sheets,and of creating dynamically materialized views whose results comprisesuch row identifiers, may be useful in a variety of scenarios. Numeroussmall business owners who are not experts in software development ortraditional database techniques may for example be able to generatehighly robust customized applications using such expressions, as updatesto expressions resulting from changes to the underlying data sheets maybe propagated automatically. The use of the familiar spreadsheet-likedata sheets interfaces may considerably simplify the task of applicationauthoring, while the richness of the data relationships that can bemodeled using row links/identifiers and dynamically materialized viewsmay equal or exceed those that can be modeled using traditionaldatabases. A large population of individuals and organizations may beable to develop and deploy mobile and other applications easily andsecurely, without having to write source code.

Illustrative Computer System

In at least some embodiments, a server that implements a portion or allof one or more of the technologies described herein, including thetechniques for storing, evaluating and managing row links, dynamicallymaterialized views and data sheets based expressions, authoring anddeploying applications that use such expressions, creating and modifyingcards, data sheets and the like may include a general-purpose computersystem that includes or is configured to access one or morecomputer-accessible media. FIG. 18 illustrates such a general-purposecomputing device 9000. In the illustrated embodiment, computing device9000 includes one or more processors 9010 coupled to a system memory9020 (which may comprise both non-volatile and volatile memory modules)via an input/output (I/O) interface 9030. Computing device 9000 furtherincludes a network interface 9040 coupled to I/O interface 9030.

In various embodiments, computing device 9000 may be a uniprocessorsystem including one processor 9010, or a multiprocessor systemincluding several processors 9010 (e.g., two, four, eight, or anothersuitable number). Processors 9010 may be any suitable processors capableof executing instructions. For example, in various embodiments,processors 9010 may be general-purpose or embedded processorsimplementing any of a variety of instruction set architectures (ISAs),such as the x86, PowerPC, SPARC, or MIPS ISAs, or any other suitableISA. In multiprocessor systems, each of processors 9010 may commonly,but not necessarily, implement the same ISA. In some implementations,graphics processing units (GPUs) may be used instead of, or in additionto, conventional processors.

System memory 9020 may be configured to store instructions and dataaccessible by processor(s) 9010. In at least some embodiments, thesystem memory 9020 may comprise both volatile and non-volatile portions;in other embodiments, only volatile memory may be used. In variousembodiments, the volatile portion of system memory 9020 may beimplemented using any suitable memory technology, such as static randomaccess memory (SRAM), synchronous dynamic RAM or any other type ofmemory. For the non-volatile portion of system memory (which maycomprise one or more NVDIMMs, for example), in some embodimentsflash-based memory devices, including NAND-flash devices, may be used.In at least some embodiments, the non-volatile portion of the systemmemory may include a power source, such as a supercapacitor or otherpower storage device (e.g., a battery). In various embodiments,memristor based resistive random access memory (ReRAM),three-dimensional NAND technologies, Ferroelectric RAM, magnetoresistiveRAM (MRAM), or any of various types of phase change memory (PCM) may beused at least for the non-volatile portion of system memory. In theillustrated embodiment, program instructions and data implementing oneor more desired functions, such as those methods, techniques, and datadescribed above, are shown stored within system memory 9020 as code 9025and data 9026.

In one embodiment, I/O interface 9030 may be configured to coordinateI/O traffic between processor 9010, system memory 9020, and anyperipheral devices in the device, including network interface 9040 orother peripheral interfaces such as various types of persistent and/orvolatile storage devices. In some embodiments, I/O interface 9030 mayperform any necessary protocol, timing or other data transformations toconvert data signals from one component (e.g., system memory 9020) intoa format suitable for use by another component (e.g., processor 9010).In some embodiments, I/O interface 9030 may include support for devicesattached through various types of peripheral buses, such as a variant ofthe Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus standard or theUniversal Serial Bus (USB) standard, for example. In some embodiments,the function of I/O interface 9030 may be split into two or moreseparate components, such as a north bridge and a south bridge, forexample. Also, in some embodiments some or all of the functionality ofI/O interface 9030, such as an interface to system memory 9020, may beincorporated directly into processor 9010.

Network interface 9040 may be configured to allow data to be exchangedbetween computing device 9000 and other devices 9060 attached to anetwork or networks 9050, such as other computer systems or devices asillustrated in FIG. 1 through FIG. 17 , for example. In variousembodiments, network interface 9040 may support communication via anysuitable wired or wireless general data networks, such as types ofEthernet network, for example. Additionally, network interface 9040 maysupport communication via telecommunications/telephony networks such asanalog voice networks or digital fiber communications networks, viastorage area networks such as Fibre Channel SANs, or via any othersuitable type of network and/or protocol.

In some embodiments, system memory 9020 may be one embodiment of acomputer-accessible medium configured to store program instructions anddata as described above for FIG. 1 through FIG. 17 for implementingembodiments of the corresponding methods and apparatus. However, inother embodiments, program instructions and/or data may be received,sent or stored upon different types of computer-accessible media.Generally speaking, a computer-accessible medium may includenon-transitory storage media or memory media such as magnetic or opticalmedia, e.g., disk or DVD/CD coupled to computing device 9000 via I/Ointerface 9030. A non-transitory computer-accessible storage medium mayalso include any volatile or non-volatile media such as RAM (e.g. SDRAM,DDR SDRAM, RDRAM, SRAM, etc.), ROM, etc., that may be included in someembodiments of computing device 9000 as system memory 9020 or anothertype of memory. In some embodiments, a plurality of non-transitorycomputer-readable storage media may collectively store programinstructions that when executed on or across one or more processorsimplement at least a subset of the methods and techniques describedabove. A computer-accessible medium may include transmission media orsignals such as electrical, electromagnetic, or digital signals,conveyed via a communication medium such as a network and/or a wirelesslink, such as may be implemented via network interface 9040. Portions orall of multiple computing devices such as that illustrated in FIG. 18may be used to implement the described functionality in variousembodiments; for example, software components running on a variety ofdifferent devices and servers may collaborate to provide thefunctionality. In some embodiments, portions of the describedfunctionality may be implemented using storage devices, network devices,or special-purpose computer systems, in addition to or instead of beingimplemented using general-purpose computer systems. The term “computingdevice”, as used herein, refers to at least all these types of devices,and is not limited to these types of devices.

CONCLUSION

Various embodiments may further include receiving, sending or storinginstructions and/or data implemented in accordance with the foregoingdescription upon a computer-accessible medium. Generally speaking, acomputer-accessible medium may include storage media or memory mediasuch as magnetic or optical media, e.g., disk or DVD/CD-ROM, volatile ornon-volatile media such as RAM (e.g. SDRAM, DDR, RDRAM, SRAM, etc.),ROM, etc., as well as transmission media or signals such as electrical,electromagnetic, or digital signals, conveyed via a communication mediumsuch as network and/or a wireless link.

The various methods as illustrated in the Figures and described hereinrepresent exemplary embodiments of methods. The methods may beimplemented in software, hardware, or a combination thereof. The orderof method may be changed, and various elements may be added, reordered,combined, omitted, modified, etc.

Various modifications and changes may be made as would be obvious to aperson skilled in the art having the benefit of this disclosure. It isintended to embrace all such modifications and changes and, accordingly,the above description to be regarded in an illustrative rather than arestrictive sense.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:storing at least a portion of a data set of an application in one ormore data sheets, wherein individual ones of the data sheets comprise atwo-dimensional grid of cells; obtaining, via one or more programmaticinterfaces, an indication of a source object to be used to populate aplurality of list options of a drop-down list of a graphical userinterface of the application, wherein the source object comprises atleast a portion of a set of rows of the one or more data sheets; andstoring a record of a relationship between contents of a particular cellof a data sheet of the one or more data sheets and a particular row ofthe set of rows, wherein the particular row is indicated via thedrop-down list.
 2. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim1, further comprising: generating, corresponding to individual rows ofthe source object, a respective immutable row identifier, wherein therecord of the relationship comprises an immutable row identifier of theparticular row.
 3. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim2, wherein the respective immutable row identifiers are generated inresponse to a request to group the portion of the set of rows of the oneor more data sheets as a logical table.
 4. The computer-implementedmethod as recited in claim 2, wherein the immutable row identifier ofthe particular row differs from values stored in cells of the particularrow.
 5. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, furthercomprising: subsequent to (a) a structural change to a data sheet whichresults in a change of cell coordinates of at least some cells of thesource object, and (b) a modification of a value stored in theparticular row, utilizing an immutable row identifier generated for theparticular row to determine an updated value to be displayed in theparticular cell.
 6. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim1, further comprising: storing a display specification associated withthe particular row, wherein a value displayed in the drop-down list isformatted in accordance with the display specification.
 7. Thecomputer-implemented method as recited in claim 6, further comprising:receiving, via a programmatic interface, the display specification.
 8. Asystem, comprising: one or more computing devices; wherein the one ormore computing devices include instructions that upon execution on oracross the one or more computing devices: store at least a portion of adata set of an application in one or more data sheets, whereinindividual ones of the data sheets comprise a two-dimensional grid ofcells; obtain, via one or more programmatic interfaces, an indication ofa source object to be used to populate a plurality of list options of adrop-down list of a graphical user interface of the application, whereinthe source object comprises at least a portion of a set of rows of theone or more data sheets; and store a record of a relationship betweencontents of a particular cell of a data sheet of the one or more datasheets and a particular row of the set of rows, wherein the particularrow is indicated via the drop-down list.
 9. The system as recited inclaim 8, wherein the one or more computing devices include furtherinstructions that upon execution on or across the one or more computingdevices: generate, corresponding to individual rows of the sourceobject, a respective immutable row identifier, wherein the record of therelationship comprises an immutable row identifier of the particularrow.
 10. The system as recited in claim 9, wherein the immutable rowidentifier of the particular row differs from values stored in cells ofthe particular row.
 11. The system as recited in claim 9, wherein therespective immutable row identifiers are generated in response to arequest to group the portion of the set of rows of the one or more datasheets as a logical table.
 12. The system as recited in claim 8, whereinthe one or more computing devices include further instructions that uponexecution on or across the one or more computing devices: subsequent to(a) a structural change to a data sheet which results in a change ofcell coordinates of at least some cells of the source object, and (b) amodification of a value stored in the particular row, utilize animmutable row identifier generated for the particular row to determinean updated value to be displayed in the particular cell.
 13. The systemas recited in claim 8, wherein the one or more computing devices includefurther instructions that upon execution on or across the one or morecomputing devices: store a display specification associated with theparticular row, wherein a value displayed in the drop-down list isformatted in accordance with the display specification.
 14. The systemas recited in claim 13, wherein the one or more computing devicesinclude further instructions that upon execution on or across the one ormore computing devices: receive, via a programmatic interface, thedisplay specification.
 15. One or more non-transitorycomputer-accessible storage media storing program instructions that whenexecuted on or across one or more processors: store at least a portionof a data set of an application in one or more data sheets, whereinindividual ones of the data sheets comprise a two-dimensional grid ofcells; obtain, via one or more programmatic interfaces, an indication ofa source object to be used to populate a plurality of list options of adrop-down list of a graphical user interface of the application, whereinthe source object comprises at least a portion of a set of rows of theone or more data sheets; and store a record of a relationship betweencontents of a particular cell of a data sheet of the one or more datasheets and a particular row of the set of rows, wherein the particularrow is indicated via the drop-down list.
 16. The one or morenon-transitory computer-accessible storage media as recited in claim 15,storing further program instructions that when executed on or across theone or more processors: generate, corresponding to individual rows ofthe source object, a respective immutable row identifier, wherein therecord of the relationship comprises an immutable row identifier of theparticular row.
 17. The one or more non-transitory computer-accessiblestorage media as recited in claim 16, wherein the respective immutablerow identifiers are generated in response to a request to group theportion of the set of rows of the one or more data sheets as a logicaltable.
 18. The one or more non-transitory computer-accessible storagemedia as recited in claim 16, wherein the immutable row identifier ofthe particular row differs from values stored in cells of the particularrow.
 19. The one or more non-transitory computer-accessible storagemedia as recited in claim 15, storing further program instructions thatwhen executed on or across the one or more processors: subsequent to (a)a structural change to a data sheet which results in a change of cellcoordinates of at least some cells of the source object, and (b) amodification of a value stored in the particular row, utilize animmutable row identifier generated for the particular row to determinean updated value to be displayed in the particular cell.
 20. The one ormore non-transitory computer-accessible storage media as recited inclaim 15, storing further program instructions that when executed on oracross the one or more processors: store a display specificationassociated with the particular row, wherein a value displayed in thedrop-down list is formatted in accordance with the displayspecification.